


A Rose Amongst Thorns

by s_tory_teller



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Attempted Murder, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Helps Everyone, F/M, Forgiveness, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, I promise, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, It's just a lot of dark first, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), POV Multiple, Past Abuse, Post-Reichenbach, Self-Harm, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:50:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_tory_teller/pseuds/s_tory_teller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after the Fall, John Watson feels worthless, at least until he finds a girl who has a certain striking resemblance to a certain consulting detective. The mysteriousness and danger that she pulls with her strikes up his curiosity, at least until Sherlock appears back from the dead. Now he has two problems: Facing his suppressed emotions for his former flatmate and madman and protecting his newest acquaintance from threats that he barely knows.</p><p>Sherlock Holmes needs to come home. Three years abroad has left him broken and lonely. He would do anything for the life of John Watson, though, even stay away. When he returns to London, however, he finds John not exactly as he expected and a girl who is nothing less than surprising.</p><p>Rosie runs. For years, she has been running and she hopes it's over. But when she gets on a plane to London, she never expects to find just the man she needed to befriend. Now, she has to save him and his mad ghost of a friend from themselves. God, if only they would just tell each other!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first post to AO3, so I hope you like it. This fic was betaed by the beautiful soul that is hoper_dreamer. All mistakes and plotholes you find are mine. I'm hoping to update regularly, but no promises. Freshman Year in college is a bit of a bitch.

This was some kind of poetic justice, John thought as he stared at the blank wall just above the bare desk. His back was rigid as he sat upon the hospital-cornered mattress in the bedroom of his tiny flat. His life had come full circle in the past three years. Tedium to adrenaline to pain to tedium and again, all in less than a decade. He again felt the ache of the old wound in his shoulder as the weather changed from summer to fall. Once more, his knee gave out on a regular basis and the use of a cane was a necessity. 

The biggest difference between the bedsit he rented after returning from Afghanistan and this one now was the passage of time. . .

And the gun in his hand. 

He had been turning the finely tuned weapon between his palms for some time. What would he use it for anyway these days? There was no one to shoot; no one to protect. Not since _him_.

The empty wall before him swirled with color. Rough grey pavement, slicked with fresh blood set the scene laid out before him. He stared at pale blue eyes, alabaster skin, and rose-hued lips. The body before him blank, no spark of life or thought to be seen. The cheeks, sharp as they were pale, were cold to the touch. The mouth was pulled into a permanent frown, never to quirk up in amusement again. 

He blinked. White again. God, this was worse than the nightmares. His heart stabbed against his chest viciously with each beat. Ragged gasps tore through the flat. The muzzle of the gun found its way to John's temple. 

_Knock, knock, knock._

His heart froze just as his finger curled around the trigger. He prayed for the sound to be his imagination. No one needed him. No one wanted him. It was just his imag-

_KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK._

John swore under his breath, reaching for the old metal cane. He limped painfully to the door and swung it open impatiently.

He was greeted by ratty sneakers, torn jeans and layered hoodies smeared in the grime of the streets. Light brown eyes peered through a nest of sandy hair at him, pleading silently. 

John sighed. "What is it you need, Alec?" 

The boy's lips twitched as his eyes flicked about the room, searching for any threats. "Looks like I caught you just in time, huh, Doc?" 

John glanced back to see his gun set haphazardly down on the wooden kitchen table, safety still off, grip shiny with sweat. "Yeah. Your timing is as impeccable as always, mate."

Alec smirked. "Well, us homeless folk would probably be dead without'cha by now, Doc. No use makin' any changes." 

That's right. John did have a purpose. Helping those who were helpless. He had skills besides wiping toddlers' noses, skills that saved lives. 

"What do you need?" John repeated.

Alec swallowed. "I wasn't sure we should call you up on this one. No one knows who she is or where she's from and we sure as hell ain't getting near her. The girl's venomous."

John pulled his coat from the hook and slid it on, shuffling over to the closet to snag his medical backpack. "Where, and what is wrong with her?"

"Down in the tunnels," Alec replied. "She's got a big cut on her head and is black and blue from cheek to crown, comin' in and out of it." 

"Mugging?" he asked, locking the door. 

The boy shrugged, then paused, biting his lip.

John rolled his eyes. "Spit it out." 

"You'll find her . . .interestin'," Alec said carefully.

Surprised, John glanced over. "What?"

Alec bit his lip again and flicked his eyes nervously to the doctor. "You'll see."

~~~~

Alec finally stopped, shining his dim torch on a girl curled in a long navy coat that was far too familiar for John's liking. Her dark black hair was a mass of curls matted with blood, her face covered in grime and crusted with black-red streaks. A small knapsack spilled old clothes out behind her. She was painfully thin, but her face, still smooth, said she was no older than early-twenties.

John's first thought was addict gone wrong as he observed her twitches, but, no. Her clothes had been clean before she landed in the dirt, only London mud tainting the thick coat. The cuffs of the trousers were torn to shreds and her trainers were held together by duct tape and pure strength of will. She was on the run, then, for longer than just a few days. From what? Did they catch up to her?

He slowly limped toward the unresponsive figure. She needed stitches for sure on that head wound and no doubt she would have at least an intermediate level concussion. He would have to hide her until she was ready for travel if she was really on the run. The blood loss didn't seem too severe, seeing as the cut had clotted, perhaps just enough to make her lose consciousness. And god knows the last time she had eaten. It probably had contributed to-

The body before him tensed and suddenly, icy blue eyes flew open, piercing him with a gaze that was disconcertingly familiar. 

His left hand shook as he rolled the torch to the girl and put his hands up in a complacent gesture. She snatched the light up quickly and shined it on him, her eyes darting about his body to observe details in a way he never thought he would see again. And then she spoke.

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, psychosomatic limp, intermittent tremor in left hand all possibly caused by your military history as a doctor on the front lines, very likely returned with the tragic and traumatic loss of a loved one. Haven't been visiting your therapist, possibly because you've been working up the courage to shoot yourself in the head and if you told them that they would have you heavily medicated and possibly committed. You have a job at a GP with kids throwing up on your shoes once a week that doesn't pay you nearly enough to get by. You blame yourself for the death of your loved one and that is what keeps you from moving on." 

John staggered back, tears stinging his eyes. That was- that was-

"Amazing."

The word slipped past his lips without him ever noticing his mouth had formed it. It hurt to breathe as he looked upon this direct embodiment of something he had lost that was curling up defensively in her long, collared coat.

"You seek adrenaline," she continued. "That combined with your lack of funds was probably the reason you came after me. I know I am supposed to be a challenge to catch." She shook her head, defeated. "Do your worst, Doctor. I'm not running anymore. I can't do it." 

Tears began to cut through the dust and blood caked on her cheeks as she set the torch down and laid her head on the broken asphalt once more. 

John shook his head. "I'm not here to hurt you." 

She snorted derisively.

"No really," he said, kneeling down beside her and reaching a hand toward the wound marring her brow. "I swear I am only here to fix you." 

"I don't even care anymore," she sighed.

He slid the medical kit off his shoulder and opened it, looking for sutures and saniwipes. "You should. You should care about what happens to yourself." 

She let out a short, dry laugh. "You don't care about yourself." 

"Only on the bad days," he whispered, setting to work on cleaning away the dried mess. 

She opened her eyes again, peering through dark lashes to set a curious gaze upon him. He tried not to let his heart jump to memories of a slightly different set of chameleon eyes watching him in the same way.

"You said amazing," she whispered. "Before, when I was just spouting my observations."

"It was amazing," he replied, readying the sutures and spreading a numbing gel over the area. She was still staring at him. "I bet not many people tell you that." 

She shook her head. "Only one."

Again, silence fell as he closed the wound, pulling it shut in a series of neat lines. 

"I kept him," she said.

"Good thing." He snipped the end of the stitch. "Genius always needs an audience." 

"They didn't keep you." 

John paused, tongue running over dry lips, wondering absently how she'd figured that one out. "Will you tell me what happened to you?" 

"I got caught off guard," she replied. "Just some random bloke off the street. I managed to fight him off, but I didn't get too far before I blacked out."

He fished a small pen light from his bag and flicked it to each of her eyes. Pupils responded normally: not too severe. 

"Do you have someone to watch over you tonight?" he asked. "You need to be woken up every two hours."

"Yes," she replied innocently. "I can get there." 

He studied her for a second. "Yeah, I'm going to call bullshit on that one." 

She frowned and began to form an argument but he cut it off.

"You were just telling me how you were absolutely sure I was here to kill you," he said. "Don't be offended when I say I find it hard to believe that you have someone you can trust to watch you while you sleep." 

Her mouth snapped shut and a petulant frown adorned her face, sending another pang of loss through his chest. 

"You can trust me if you want," he offered. "What's your name?" 

She blinked slowly. He could tell that she was already fading into sleepiness. 

"I can't just trust you," she mumbled. "You'll kill me in my sleep like the others tried to do." 

The sharp tang of adrenaline began to flood his veins. "Others?"

"Yeah," she said. "But they haven't been following me for five months now." 

"Who hasn't been following you?" he questioned.

"The people you work for!" she insisted.

He let out an irritated breath. "I'm not working for anybody but myself. How many times must I say that I won't hurt you?"

She yawned and closed her eyes without a reply. 

He sighed. "C'mon. At least tell me your name." 

The unnatural icy irises met his once more through half-lidded eyes. "It’s," she paused as if trying to think up something clever. "Alison."

He rolled his eyes at the obvious use of an alias, but let it slide. "I'm John Watson." 

"John Watson?" she asked. Her lips quirked up in a tiny smile even as her eyes slid closed again. "Oh, am I lucky."

Her breathing paced out slowly, each exhale warming John's jean-clad knees and he looked on in mild shock.

There was a shuffle from behind them. Alec spoke up, "She know you Doc?" 

John shook his head. "I've never met her before," he replied, brushing back a stray curl. "But if you would help me bring her back to the flat, I bet I could find out." 

__________________________________________________________________________________

"All threats have been neutralized." 

Sherlock sat up abruptly, the ragged sheets falling away. "You're serious, Mycroft?"

"I rarely kid, Sherlock," Mycroft's sultry voice projected from the horrid connection of his latest burner phone. He could hear the contempt across the hundreds of miles between them. 

However, Sherlock was far too relieved to care. There had been far too many months of fighting for his life to be offended by Mycroft's opinions. He merely wanted to be sure. He just needed to know-

"I can go home?"

He lied to himself, convincing his mind that there was no hint of desperation as he asked the question. He would do anything to finish it and finish it properly. He could stay away for one more day if it meant keeping everyone safe. 

There was a short pause as Mycroft weighed his next words. "The paper work is in order, but you may not be as welcome as you think." 

"I don't care," he snapped. His stomach gave a huge swooping sensation and he couldn't wipe the smile from his face. "I am leaving this wretched place immediately, with or without your help." 

"It has already been arranged," Mycroft replied. "You will need to-" 

"Text me the details," Sherlock interrupted, rolling out of the musty bed and sliding his trainers on, officially ending the conversation with a push of a button. 

The old motel room he was in smelled just the same as every single motel he had had in the past two years: like sex, cigarettes and mold. It was good enough for the situation, he supposed, just like he had had to concede his appearance to stay alive. 

He ran his fingers through his greasy hair. It was much longer than it had been back in London and blonde at the tips from that time a year ago when he bleached it. The straightening treatment he had put on it three months ago had since worn off, abandoning the appearance of a fashionable juvenile delinquent and pushing him more toward the homeless drug addict persona. All of it needed to change when he went back home. No more playacting and costumes. He would get his sleek suits, styled hair, and flashy coat back. Just the way it used to be.

Besides, it wouldn't do much good if John didn't recognize him when he came back from the dead. 

Apprehension twisted his gut into knots, but Sherlock quashed it down viciously as he had thousands of times before. He could still see John's face, frozen in a mask of nauseating horror and fractured pain as he looked at something he could not fix, the friend that he could not save.

John would have moved on by now though. It wasn't as if Sherlock had a huge affect on John's life. And John would forgive him, once he heard the story, and they would still be friends.

Never mind the pictures Sherlock's subconscious dragged up of John's attention focused solely upon him.

He will forgive you, Sherlock told himself for the thousandth time. He _will_ forgive you.

____________________________________________________________________________________

She woke with a pillow bunched under her head and a lumpy quilt draped over her, two things she was no longer accustomed to; they set her teeth on edge. Most every time she had taken to stealing away on a couch, she had woken to a knife to her throat or a gun to her head. Those attempts at her life were always the most disappointing. The assassins always thought they could sneak up in the middle of the night, catching her off guard, waking her to see the face of her demise before bringing down their wrath. The smart ones knew better than to get that close to her. No killer ever made it out whole when they got so near. 

This place was slightly different, though. She already had the feeling of _safe_ swathed around her like a blanket, which was odd in and of itself; she hadn't felt that way in _years_. She had vague memories of being carried home and woken by a soft hand. What had happened to her? She remembered getting off the plane to London, automatically changing her accent to match the country. Her clothes had been cleaned for the first time in months. She had been walking the alleys, looking for a good place to stop for the night when... Ah yes, the men, fighting them, the cut to her head.

And John Watson. Yeah, she had heard that name a few times toward the beginning of this fiasco. Just thinking that name now sent a frisson of hope through her. No, she didn't know him all that well, but she'd heard of him once or twice. She wondered where Holmes had been when the doctor had picked her up. What if he was just waiting for her to wake up? She discarded the thought. There would have been a feeling of being watched by now.

She reviewed the patchy memories of the deductions she had made last night about the army doctor who had probably saved her life. The man appeared to be severely depressed because of a lost loved one, evidence being the lines around his mouth and forehead, and had a small paycheck for the amount of work he did at the GP if the vomit stains on his old sneakers were anything to go by. Those were not particularly a good combination, usually leading to recklessness and a self-destructing addiction. He had seemed perfectly sober, though, of drugs or alcohol. His biggest problem seemed to be the inexplicable suicidal thoughts.

The smell of gunmetal and sweat permeating from him was practically overwhelming for her last night, her concussed state sharpening some of her senses and dulling others. He had no other reason to be holding a gun than to be contemplating using it on himself.

Why would that man be suicidal? She guessed he had a regular adrenaline fix hunting criminals with Sherlock Holmes, so that should have kept him happy and crazed.

Unless he didn't have that anymore. 

_Traumatic loss of a loved one._

Oh.

Well, fuck.

Her stomach ached. Sherlock Holmes, dead. John must have seen everything. She would do anything keep out of his shoes. Jeez, that would have been awful. 

There was a shuffle in the room across from her, about 15 feet away. She heard a plastic bag open and the sound of a toaster lever being pushed down. Within minutes, the room filled with the gorgeous smell of bread. 

Her stomach clenched painfully. When was the last time she ate? Two days ago? Three? It's all been a blur since she decided to get on a plane. There was too much planning and not enough time to make sure her body was functioning at a high enough performance. She had completely been taken by surprise by those thugs.

Her stomach emitted a whine, craving sustenance. She needed to get up. Maybe she could stay here, but not long, and she had to recover. 

She opened her eyes and immediately shut them. The light, though dim through the shuttered curtains, sent flames through her already aching brain. An involuntary groan escaped her lips. 

_Step, stepthunk. Step, stepthunk._

Cane, her mind supplied. Then from memory, psychosomatic limp.

Something plastic-y rattled just above her and she jumped at the proximity, squinting open her eyes to find a bottle of painkillers.

"Sorry I don't have anything better," a very calm, very British voice supplied. "I took to getting rid of anything too strong quite a while ago." 

She blinked over to see a rough, lined face. John Watson wore his doctor's persona as he flicked his eyes between hers, always looking for new symptoms. He pushed her hair back briefly to check her head. She felt the stitches pulling her skin together a few inches above her brow as well as the bruises pulsing at her cheek and eye.

"Were you hurt anywhere else in particular?" John Watson asked, making a cursory glance down the rest of her body, which was thankfully still fully covered. For a short moment she panicked in the absence of her coat and backpack, but, with a flickering glance about, she found them draped over the arm of the couch at her feet.

She tried to reply, but found that her throat was far too dry to form more than a croak. John's lips twitched up as he set the bottle of pills down and picked up a large glass of water. She began to sit up only to be attacked by a swirling room and shooting pains across her forehead.

"Careful, now," John said as he placed a soft hand behind her skull and slowly helped her into a sitting position. "Dizziness and pain?"

She nodded in response, sending a few more aches through her brain.

"Only to be expected with the concussion you have," John commented as he popped open the pill bottle and spilled three capsules into his palm handing both them and the glass over to her. She accepted gratefully and gulped them down like the undernourished person she was. 

"So do you have other injuries?" He asked again. "Do I need to be checking ribs or joints for breakage?"

"No." Her voice was so disused, it came out more like a harsh croak. "I wouldn't ever let someone get me on the ground long enough for them to do real damage." 

"It keeps sounding as if you have experience in this field," he chuckled. She remained quiet. Oh, he had no idea. 

The toaster popped behind them and her stomach clenched, reminding her that she was actually _starving_ and needed sustenance _now_. A low growl sang out from her mutinous midsection.

"Hungry?" John smiled as he glanced back to the kitchen area.

She nodded silently once more, noting how all the smiles John gave never reached his eyes. She sighed. At least the ache in her head was becoming more tolerable the more she suffered through it.

"When was the last time you ate?" 

The grimace that automatically painted her lips was enough to tell the doctor that it was far too long. He got up and slowly made his way to serve the toast, slathering butter and jam on the pieces, probably to put more calories into her body.

The small plate was set in front of her and she was vaguely aware that he picked up the empty glass as she promptly devoured everything, nausea be damned. Before he had returned, both pieces were gone. He handed the glass over and she greedily drank every last drop. 

He sat down in the little lumpy chair across from her. "Feel a bit better, now?" 

"Yes," she replied. "Thanks." The word sounded awkward rolling off her tongue. When was the last time she said that?

"Now," he began with a small sigh. "Why don't you tell me how you know me?"

Aw, shit, she thought, grimacing. She had said something to him last night, hadn't she? 

"I saw your blog a while back, with Mr. Holmes," she said, truthfully.

He flinched slightly at the name. "I'm sorry I can't help you."

"I know that now," she said. A second later she realized it was probably a little harsh and frowned, reluctant to take it back.

Oddly enough, John merely tried to suppress a small smile, one that actually showed a tiny twinkle in his eye. 

She realized something. "I remind you of him."

He looked up at her. _How did you know_ was the picture on his face, but what instead came out was, "Right down to the coat."

A flash of pride pulled her lips up before she schooled her face into blankness. "What happened?" she asked carefully. She imagined a gunshot, Sherlock Holmes pushing his friend out of the way. The man could have done a number of things, dying valiantly in his fight. 

John blew out a short, painful breath. "Suicide."

"What?" She could feel her eyes bugging in surprise. That did not fit at all. Suicide? No, Sherlock had had a lot to look forward to in the life ahead of him, not to mention a man so vain would never kill himself.

"Jumped off a building," John said to his clenched hands. "Right in front of me. Called me too, to say goodbye."

She stared, her brain not quite computing the information. It at least explained the reason John had not really moved on. His love was a powerful motivator, but guilt was the factor that pushed toward damnable thoughts. Still...

_"Why?"_ she asked. In the back of her head she felt the presence of someone very far away giving her a look of disapproval at the complete lack of tact.

He shot her a sharp, defensive look, taking in a breath to reprimand her. Before she could feel guilty though, a sharp series of taps at the door cut him off. 

The look he gave before rising clearly said that he knew she had avoided the real reason he was questioning her. As the door swung open, a vaguely familiar boy stepped in.

"Tea, Alec?" John asked politely. 

"Another one's gone missing, Doc," Alec said. 

John sighed. "Have you-"

"You know the Met won't do shite for homeless," he cut off.

"Well, you know I don't do that kind of thing anymore," John replied. "Not since..." 

The silence that hung in the air after was painful with unspoken and fragile feelings. She felt as if she could cut the tension with one of the carefully sharpened knives in her pack and still not get all the way through.

She sighed audibly. "Where were they last seen?"

The boy cast a suspicious glare in her direction. "And why should I trust you, _Alison_?" 

God, she hated being impaired. Her tells were so much more obvious when her brain was scrambling against a head wound.

She pressed her lips together and glanced at John Watson, who, of all the people on the earth, she believed she could trust. Besides, at a standing record of five months, one week, and three days, it was doubtful that anyone would find her soon. And maybe, just maybe, she should start leaving little drops around so _he_ could find her. 

She hesitated for a bit more, before her decision was made. Yes, the name she liked to be called most.

"Rosaleigh," she said. "But I prefer to be called Rosie." 

"Rosie." The name came off of John's lips like a call to a beloved child. 

The boy rolled his eyes, but apparently found the response satisfactory. "Well Rosie, how do you suppose we find my friends?"

She smiled. "Why don't we start from the beginning?"


	2. Chapter 2

Brilliant. This girl was absolutely brilliant. In two days she had tracked down Alec's friend and apprehended the people behind the kidnappings, all with a concussion. Fantastic.

The girl was young, but not even the least naive to the world around her. By the end of two days, with her sarcastic yet fond comments, Rosie had snuck her way into his life like the daughter he never had.

John wanted to protect her at every corner, but she clearly had needed no help. He watched her take down three fully-grown and trained men in the span of a few minutes without aggravating any of her previous injuries. She hadn't blinked as she floored them with skills that John had seen only in the best hand-to-hand fighters in the military. It was clear she was no stranger to pain and danger, that she had done this exact exercise a hundred times before. 

Which begged the question of: what exactly was Rosie up to before she had arrived on the streets of London?

He knew she was on the run from someone or something that necessitated the capacity to destroy very large and very armed men. She had dealt with people far stronger and more skilled than the lackeys she had encountered with John. But why?

A hiss of pain resounded about the alley as the flashing red and blue lights of the police rolled into the vicinity. He turned to find Rosie clutching her head, her eyes shut fiercely against the strobe-like flashes and piercing sirens. 

He placed a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Time for some more painkillers?"

"You think?" she moaned.

"That was fantastic you know," he said, running a thumb over the harsh black stitches, making sure once again that none were broken or pulled.

She sighed irritably. "It would be more fantastic if it were silent."

"You're the one who requested them," he pointed out. 

"Yes, because those men were serial rapists overlooking a human trafficking business. They need to be in jail for a very long time."

"I-" John blinked. "Excuse me? They were what?" 

"You heard me," she replied wearily.

He looked at her in shock, running a hand over his brow. She hadn't given any kind of indication that this case was _that_ serious. "And I let you go in there?" 

Rosie scoffed. "Oh please, human traffickers are the least of my worries right now." 

John's eyes widened, his brain in the middle of forming a very important line question, when an officer sidled up to them. 

"Would it be awful of us to ask you guys to give your statements at the Yard? We are short of staff for this case."

The Yard? John shifted awkwardly, "Uhm-"

Rosie moaned. "Just get me out of this god-forsaken place and into somewhere quiet."

The officer smiled politely. "We can arrange that," he said as he reached out to take Rosie's arm.

John watched as she jerked away from the touch. "Lead on, officer," she sneered.

The man gave her a strange look but walked toward the nearest car, letting Rosie follow in his wake.

"Right," John breathed. "Right."

He gripped his cane a little tighter and moved toward the vehicle, dread settling uneasily in his chest.

~~~~

John shifted in his seat. He was definitely _not_ comfortable with this. The New Scotland Yard held many unwanted ghosts swirling dramatically between the desks, and being settled in a questioning room was probably close to the bottom of the list of places he wanted to be right now. 

But Rosie had sighed in utter relief once the door had been closed on them with the promise that an attendant would be in shortly. She had rested her cheek, the bruises there now fading to an ugly yellow-green, on the metal table and her breaths had become even very quickly. 

John was not so lucky, but if he were honest with himself, it was his fault. He had gotten her involved in this. He should have expected to come to the NSY afterwards. Really, he deserved to be punished a little for his adrenaline seeking ways.

The one-way mirror across from him showed a haggard and nervous man, like he was the one preparing to be questioned for the rapes and slaves sold. To be fair though, the last time he visited the Yard, he had looked worse, almost dead. He had vowed that he would avoid the place at every opportunity that day. It was about time that he broke that promise, he supposed. 

That didn't mean he wasn't itching to leave.

The door creaked open, letting in a plethora of voices and office noises with it. _Perfect,_ thought John. _The quicker this goes the better._

Then, a familiar gruff voice said, "Sorry for the long wait folks, they had to pick me up from a different department."

John dropped his face to his hands at the first glimpse of silver hair. Just his luck it would be one of the three people he wanted nothing more than to avoid.

Lestrade looked up and froze when he caught sight oh John. "John Watson," he grinned. "Bloody hell, mate, it's been a while."

"Greg," he mumbled in response.

"What are you doing getting mixed up in human trafficking ring?" Lestrade asked, pulling out the chair with a loud screech.

Rosie tensed beside him. From the corner of his eye he watched as she raised her head slowly and fixed a deadly glare on the source of the unnecessary noise. Lestrade looked back at her, slightly unnerved at the eyes locked upon him. 

"And what is your name, miss?" Lestrade asked. 

"Mary," she replied at a whisper. "Mary Morstan." 

John rolled his eyes briefly, something that was not missed by the DI who frowned and leaned forward.

"There is no need to lie to us," he said.

She threw an irritated glance in John's direction that he refused to acknowledge. 

Lestrade went in for the attack. "Why were you at the scene in the first place, Miss Morstan? If you need to lie about your name, it makes me suspect that you are more involved in the crime than what it appears. How else would you know where to go?" 

Rosie leaned back and pulled on a cold mask, tilting her head at the challenge. "I know you had an argument last night, all night, in fact, with your ex-wife over the custody of your children, no, child. Probably a girl. The date you had today on your lunch break didn't end too well because you left them in a rush. There is too much work to do and too little time for anything else. You stay up late at night on weekends working on all the cold cases left behind by yourself and the other officers, but you always feel lost on them. Does that make me involved in your life too?" 

Lestrade paled and pushed out of the chair, practically fleeing from the room. 

She stared after him mutely then turned her gaze to John, softened in curiosity.

John grunted, trying to pull himself under control at such an obvious parallel. His eyes stung for a few seconds before a deep breath settled him enough to speak. "That was a little too close to home for him." 

Rosie studied him a second more. "Ah, I apologize, John." 

There was a moment of tense silence, in which John wrangled his emotions under control.

He took a deep breath and changed the subject. "Why won't you give your name out?"

She made a face. "Thanks for giving me away."

John rolled his eyes. "Answer my question."

She sighed. "There is a reason I am still alive today and it really isn't through working closely with the authorities." 

He shifted forward and looked intently at her. "If you are in trouble, why don't you go to the police? They could-"

"No," she cut in. "That would be a horribly awful idea." 

He frowned. Why wouldn't she just ask for help? Unless... but, no.

Rosie scowled, turning away from him in disgust. "No, I am not an escaped convict or the subject of a government manhunt."

"That wasn't even my first thought," John said. "Why don't you ask for help?"

"Why do you trust me so much?" she shot back.

"You just saved all of those people from being sold into slavery," he pointed out.

She gave him a look that said he was an idiot for speaking. It was almost refreshing. "That doesn't make me a good person." 

"I pride myself on my excellent judge of character," he said, sticking his chin out defiantly, his eyes flicking to the door for the briefest of moments.

She hummed in curiosity, but before she could question anything further, the door opened once more and Lestrade appeared, slightly red-eyed but otherwise composed. 

"Sorry 'bout that," he rumbled, carefully sliding out the chair again and sitting down in it. "You just reminded me of a few past mistakes." 

"You proved him innocent though, didn't you?" Rosie asked.

Lestrade licked his lips, glancing at John. "Doesn't change what happened."

"Nope," she popped the 'p', eliciting a quick little smile from both men. "But it helps a guilty conscience."

Lestrade shook his head. "You are just like him." 

"So I've been told," she replied, looking over to John with a tiny smirk. "Now, if you don't mind, we should get on with this so I can take some painkillers and John can finally sleep after two days." 

Lestrade nodded and, thankfully, began reading off questions.

~~~~

"John." 

Outside of the NSY, an hour later, John paused on the steps and turned to find Lestrade tailing after them, pulling on a coat and loosening his tie with a tentative expression.

"Greg," John said stiffly. 

"Look," Lestrade said. "I'm off duty now. What do you say to getting a pint or two? On me."

John pressed his lips together. It was really past due for him to forgive the man. From the minute everything had gone down, Lestrade had been searching through each and every case to prove that John's best friend was no less than the man he was said to be. Over a year ago, John remembered seeing the headlines 'We Believe,' 'Fake Detective Proven to be Real,' and 'Moriarty Was a Fluke' splashed across the front pages of every newspaper in London. The relief John had felt that day was the most emotion to come over him since the second he had lost the madman. 

He made his decision, "It's going to have to be a bit stronger than a pint, mate."

Lestrade broke into a huge grin and he clapped a hand on John's shoulder. "You're on."

John smiled faintly just as he caught sight of Rosie standing at the foot of the steps, watching the exchange curiously. He was just about to apologize when she shook her head.

"Go on. I'll be fine," she said.

He looked her over carefully, not wanting her to return to the streets. "I expect you to be there when I wake up with a massive hangover." 

She pursed her lips. "Deal."

"You need an address?" he called as she walked away.

She rolled her eyes and turned in the correct direction of John's flat.

Lestrade chuckled and looked at John meaningfully.

"What?" John asked.

The DI merely shook his head. "Nothing. Let's go."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Rosie needed to research, so when John's officer friend asked for drinks, she bailed out to nick John's tiny laptop and spend the rest of the meager early morning hours finding information on the death of Sherlock Holmes. 

The tiny lamp beside her on the couch glowed, giving the pale walls an orangey hue. Besides the stray car and the tiny clicks of the keyboard, the world around her was silent, as if it was holding its breath in anticipation. She clicked open Google to type in 'the suicide of sherlock holmes.' 

The first entry was a newspaper. The picture showed police lights in front of St. Bartholomew's hospital and a headline that screamed, 'SUICIDE OF FAKE DETECTIVE.' Rosie made a tiny face at the thought of John Watson seeing these, all just after he watched the dumb man jump. He must have been catatonic at the time... but these were not thoughts she needed to investigate. 

As she filed through each news report, a pattern seemed to occur, not of words, but of photographs. Not a single one had gotten close enough to the scene to get a picture of the crime, even after the body had been removed. Usually a crew could bribe bystanders who naturally had taken out their phones to capture the incident. But there weren't any, despite the number of witnesses. 

Rosie frowned. Unusual to say the least, but she needed to see the body. Or at least have an official autopsy. 

She hacked into St. Bartholomew's system and searched, but found the file protected by secure settings. _Access only: Dr. Molly Hooper._ Odd. With a small amount of Facebook stalking, Rosie cracked Dr. Hooper's password in three tries. When the file opened, Rosie gaped.

Photographs lined the top. The first was a picture of the whole body still clothed and hiding any injury that might be observed from an outsider. The second was of the face, tilted to the side that was not covered in blood. The third was of the torso and arms, still clothed. The final was from the waist down.

They were the single most unprofessional set of autopsy pictures she had ever seen. She was almost disgusted by them. How could any person receive a doctorate and yet still be this incompetent? It wasn't possible, unless... 

She clicked back through. Yes, there. The head shot. That skull was no more broken than her own. Next, the hands, still whole, not conducive to a man who has just fallen from a 15-story building. Reflexes spur a body to brace the fall with hands and feet, but both were shown have no more damage than an average person.

Rosie smiled to herself, leaning back into the lumpy cushions. Oh, he was clever. Clever, clever-

The door to the flat gave a tiny rattle and Rosie's mind clicked into survival mode. Not John, she would have heard him approaching a mile away, what with that limp of his and the fact that he was sure to be shit-faced drunk. Homeless people in need of help knock politely. Intruder, then. Silently, she shut the laptop and retrieved John's illegal firearm from the desk drawer. Methodically checking the rounds were in place and the gun was ready to shoot, she sat back down on the couch and switched off the lamp. 

With a tiny click, the door swung open, revealing a thin figure shrouded in darkness. The man (going by height and stature) stepped into the flat and softly closed the door behind him.

Rosie aimed the gun at the figure's heart, only stopped from pulling the trigger by the slight curiosity that nagged at her. She flicked the safety off and watched as the man froze. 

"John?" The deep baritone held a hint of nervousness that caused Rosie to raise a dark brow. Slowly, she reached over to the lamp to flood the room with warm, rich light.

The first thing she noticed were the shoes: shiny, brand new and exorbitant. The black pants were not new, though it was obvious they hadn't been worn in quite a while, and the same went for the tight purple silk dress shirt that pulled at his shoulders. Lastly, Rosie set eyes on alabaster skin, full lips, chameleon eyes and a head full of dark curls.

And she began laughing.

The intruder's lips parted and his eyes scrunched in confusion. "Who are you?" he asked.

She flipped on the safety and rose facing the man, breathless, not responding to his question. 

Sherlock Holmes shifted awkwardly on his feet, staring as her laughter continued.

Rosie gasped in a breath between giggles and said, "Oh, you are in _so_ much trouble."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Sherlock did not quite understand what was happening as he watched the strange young woman drift through the kitchen preparing tea. As he observed, she pulled each and every item from the correct cabinet with only the slightest hesitation. She couldn't have lived with John long. Mycroft would have said something to him. 

_You may not be as welcome as you think._

Could John possibly be with this young girl? A surge of strange anger coursed through him. No. No, John would never date someone so far from his own age. He would be uncomfortable with the difference. Why was she here, then?

A quick glance around the flat uncovered a dusty long coat not dissimilar to his own. A pair of duct-taped trainers were set neatly to the side of the front door. With another glance at the clothing she wore, he drew his final conclusions, holding them to himself for future blackmail.

"Who are you?" He must have asked the same question at least three times since sitting down. She still had not answered. She did not seem in least to be surprised that he was there and very clearly knew who he was and what he had done. It was beyond irritating.

"Where is John?" He asked. "I am under the influence that this is his flat." 

"You are correct," she replied. "He happens to be out with the good Detective Inspector Lestrade drinking away the pain of your memory." 

Sherlock's lips thinned. "Really."

"Yes," she smirked, her pale blue eyes flashing in entertainment. "I apparently remind them of you." 

He studied her. Yes she did have a similar presence to himself, though far more playful than he ever was as a young adult. She did not dress like him with the exception of the old coat. He did not quite see the connection with this strange girl. Perhaps, she had the mental acuity.

He leaned back as she brought out two cups. "Why don't you deduce me then?" 

She smiled sweetly and settled into the couch. "How's your tea?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and smelled the mist. No poisons he could identify. He lifted the cup to take a tiny sip and still found nothing wrong.

Absolutely nothing. The cup was exactly how he took his tea: a splash of milk and two sugars.

He turned back to her, finding a tiny smirk adorning her lips. "How?"

"John made me tea the other day when he was distracted and that's what happened," she told him. "It seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction to make you tea when there was a case."

"You went on a case together?" The words fell from his lips of their own volition. He grimaced at his lack of control.

She cocked her head in curiosity. "Yes, one of his homeless boys had a few friends go missing and I helped him recover them from a human trafficking ring, which was then turned over to the police." 

He sighed, his fingers twitching in irritation before he could stop them with the clench of a fist. The girl's eyes did not miss this. She frowned and her face pinched slightly.

"You know the DI won't let you on cases. Also, if John finds out you'd relapsed while you were gone without him, you're going to have quite the time getting him back." 

The words were like a slap to the face. Mycroft had nearly missed the signs and he was _Mycroft_. She didn't know he had ever used, much less that he had relapsed in his darkest time while gone.

Absently, his hands slid up and down his arms from elbow to wrist. He watched as pain slid across her features, yet she said nothing of his other habits.

"That was..." He hissed in a breath to control himself. "That was impressive." 

She shrugged. "I have seen quite a bit of it around."

Sherlock lifted his eyes to hers. "They say it takes one to know one." 

"Not me," she said, shaking her head. "A friend."

"I presume they are dead," he replied nonchalantly.

"Not that I am aware of but nice try," she sighed. "You haven't said a word about me. It makes me wonder if you can even deduce at all." 

The glint of amused challenge in her eye was the final straw. This _child_ needed a dressing down.

"You have been here for possibly two days, but no more than three. John helped you off the street, taking care of your injury from a common mugging, going from the blunt force trauma that left its mark upon your brow. You hadn't been in London before now though the lovely accent you've adorned screams Eton or one of the other public schools. No, you've been on the run for quite some time and that run did not originate in Britain at all. Your primary language is still English though you are more than likely fluent in many languages. This information combined with the tags on your clothing and jacket say that you predominantly lived in America, which is probably your natural accent.

"Now to address the reason for your run. To be honest, it is more than a little ambiguous. You referred to helping the police like you have done it several times before, leading to the conclusion that you have fled from a drug scene, which you admitted to being familiar with earlier. You are very educated for the average drug cartel, so it makes me think you were the legacy to a large and prominent drug lord whose land spanned several different countries. More than likely you gave tips to the police and your mentor found out, completely furious at your betrayal. They have now been searching for you for some time, across many continents. 

"But that does not cover all the information. Like I said, you have only been in London for a few days, yet you are very informed on the topic of myself and more than likely John, which brings me to the question," he paused, leaning forward to hover over her menacingly. "Who.Are.You."

She puffed out a breath Sherlock did not know she had been holding. "Wow. That was impressively close." 

He gritted his teeth. "What did I miss?" 

"You have your secrets, Mr. Holmes, and so do I," she replied. 

" _Who are you?_ " he growled. 

A familiar drunken laugh sounded from down the hall and Sherlock's heart jolted in his chest.

_John._

Nervousness flooded through him and his mind fled in a completely different direction than the irritating girl. Would John hit him? Would he open his strong arms and welcome him home? Would he ignore him? Would he turn around and just leave? His stomach twisted at the thought of never seeing John again. No. It was worth it. John's life was worth whatever happened. 

His panicky eyes locked onto a pair of sympathetic pool-blue ones. 

The girl smiled softly at him. "It will be okay."

For some reason, he believed her. He began to compose himself into his cool collected front of slight indifference as the giggles continued just outside the door. He could hear Lestrade's rumbling tones.

"Thanks for letting me kip on your sofa, John," Lestrade started as the door swung open and he stepped into the tiny flat. "You're a real-" 

John nearly ran right into the DI, alarmed at the immediate silence of his words. "What is it?" 

Sherlock's eyes snapped to that voice, the paranoia inside of him crumbling at the sight of John. He stepped forward and began analyzing the man he had so missed. 

The first thing Sherlock noticed is that John looked positively dreadful. He had lost nearly two stone, at least, since the day Sherlock had left him and his hair was verging on going completely grey. New lines and wrinkles framed his face in an almost permanent mask of hurt and stress. The cane at his side supported almost all of his weight and his shoulders were stiff with the tension of aching muscles. Dark circles under his eyes revealed that his nightly habits were more often than not interrupted by horrid nightmares. His hand shook as he slid the key back into his pocket in a way that no amount of alcohol could ever cure. 

In other words, John Watson had not taken Sherlock's death as well as the detective had predicted. 

Then, John's eyes found him, the voice in his head was violently silenced.

"John," Sherlock breathed. His chest ached at the sight if his best friend, whose face had paled with shock. "John, I'm back."

"Sherlock?" John's voice was barely a whisper as he stepped forward haphazardly, drunk, shocked, and hurting. He reached a hand out toward Sherlock for the confirmation that he was not just lost in the alcohol.

Sherlock met him halfway, twining their fingers together and pulling John into a tight embrace. John's other hand twisted into the fabric of Sherlock's shirt, the one he wore just for John because it was his favorite. The thing was probably ruined now, but Sherlock couldn't care less as his focus was directed to the wracking sobs that seemed to come from John's chest, to recataloging John's scent--rain, sweat, tea, John. His mind succumbed to the litany he had locked away for so long.

_John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John._

"I can't-" John's voice cracked as he drew in an uncontrolled breath. "I can't even believe-" 

Suddenly all of John's weight was dropped into Sherlock, who stumbled to keep the man upright. Then, another pair of hands were there helping him.

"Let's get him to bed," the girl suggested.

Sherlock brushed her away, still resentful of her presence. "I've got him." 

He swung his doctor into his arms and carried him over the threshold of the single bedroom. Laying the man down on the duvet, he stripped him of his shoes and socks. Sherlock cursed John's military ways as he scrabbled at the blankets of the tightly made bed. When he finally got John beneath the covers, he found that the man had already fallen into a fitful slumber. Outside the door, he could just hear the panicked tones of Lestrade and, in answer, the calming voice of the stranger. Sherlock realized he had never uncovered her true identity. 

In the faint light of the street, Sherlock caught a glimpse of a single tear rolling down John's weathered cheek, leaving a glittering trail. Sherlock's chest clenched at the sight, guilt stinging his own eyes as he reached forward to brush away the tiny drop with his thumb. 

_Distance makes the heart grow fonder._

Sherlock did not think that he could want to be near to anyone, but the two years he had been gone had changed him and his perspective on the man he now held. His focus had been split at times, his mind upon the vast ocean of mystery and danger before him while his newly found heart was dangerously back at Baker Street reliving each moment he could with John.

Before the doctor had shown up, Sherlock had thought he had gotten along well by himself. How wrong he was. John blunted his edges and sharpened his mind, even staved off the unrelenting waves of boredom that crashed down and threatened to tear him to pieces. John was everything to him.

And now, as Sherlock wiped away another tear from John's stubble roughened face, he feared that he had broken the only thing that had ever mattered to him. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his nose buried in John's hair as he curled around him. "I am so sorry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is an early post for you. I will be starting classes here soon so I figured I would get this one up before the chaos began. Again many thanks to my beta hoper_dreamer for correcting my story and being the best person of the planet! Also, thanks readers for considering my work worthy of your eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to give a shout out to my lovely best friend: here is a chapter for you after your awful day.
> 
> Love, your cousin,  
> s_tory_teller

John surfaced from sleep with a deep gasp. The silence in between unconsciousness and wakefulness pleasant for the briefest of seconds as a familiar scent he could not identify comforted him in the swaths of warm duvet. The placement of the rich fragrance was on the very edge of his memory when the headache pounded into existence. His exhale transformed into a deep groan as he rolled over, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes in a desperate attempt to contain the pain. When he swallowed, he found his mouth completely dry. Another wave of excruciating pressure reminded him why he had limited the drinking to once a month.

Struggling, his eyes opened to a darkened room, the faint sounds of London traffic rumbling through the curtained windows. Turning to the bedside table, he found two aspirin and a glass of water. He popped the tablets and chased it with the whole glass before flopping down to endure his hangover in solitude.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten that another human being had recently moved into his life. He was very rudely reminded of this fact when the door flung open and hit the wall with a hammering thud. The lights flicked on and he was greeted with a pair of bright blue and very excited eyes hovering over him. He groaned and rolled over, pulling the covers over his head. 

"Oh, please," he heard, and, suddenly, the blankets were ripped away. He curled in on himself like a teenager hiding from his mother as Rosie called out, "Wakey, wakey!"

"Go away," he moaned pitifully.

"C'mon, John, I even made you yummy food," she bribed.

He took a deep breath and his nose finally became attuned to the greasy, fatty scent of bacon. He cracked open his eyes. A strip of browned and shining meat dangled above him. Automatically, his hand reached up to take it, the other pushing himself into a sitting position. 

"That's it," Rosie said, placing the rest of the breakfast in front of him. Eggs, bacon, and toast smothered in jam, his favorite. 

"Tea's on the table," she said, gesturing to his little bedside stand while moving toward his tiny closet. "Get moving, we've got a long day ahead of us."

He picked up the fork and began to absently stab at the eggs. Something was wrong here. Rosie didn't sound right. And why would it be a long day? Didn't they just finish a case? He eyed her suspiciously as she rummaged through his clothes, trying to nudge his convoluted thoughts into clarity.

Pulling out his favorite cream cable knit jumper, Rosie grimaced and sighed. "You're clothes are so hideously you."

He laughed even as a pang of loss echoed through his chest. He wondered if she would try and burn the article like his best friend had attempted years ago.

He felt a tiny warm tendril in his empty chest, like a memory long forgotten that wished to fill him up. He'd had a wonderful dream last night of the man. He'd come back, standing in his living room as pale and lithe as ever, welcoming him, then taking John's very drunk self and tucking him in bed. The whole thing felt a lot like a memory, except for the words the detective would never have uttered in real life. _I'm sorry._

He was interrupted from his thoughts by a button-up to the face, followed closely by a vest, jeans, and socks. 

"Let's go," Rosie said. 

"Why am I going out?" he asked, petulantly.

She threw him a look that said she thought he must be acting deliberately slow. "Do you even remember coming home last night?"

"Yes," he replied slowly, not understanding. Something was still off about her voice, but his head still hurt too much to make the connection.

She stared like she was waiting for him to get the punchline.

He decided to continue. "I got in and Lestrade said he needed to kip on the sofa and then..." Strange, that was where dream melded with reality, where the ghost of his friend stood pale and sharp in his flat. "I must have passed out."

She lifted her chin, eyes narrowing at him like she was beginning to understand. "Riiight. Yeah, you passed out." She looked at him again, searchingly, then simply commanded, "get dressed."

With that she flounced out of the room, leaving John with a half-empty plate of breakfast and a pile of clothes that begged him to get a move on to satisfy the suspicious anticipation that coursed through him. He hadn't felt like this since... since Sherlock had been around.

With a deep breath, he finally moved to follow.

~~~~

By the time John had dressed and sat himself in the mysterious cab that had been waiting for them, his mind had cleared away the grogginess enough for him to question what was happening. John distinctly remembered finishing the case statements last night before going for drinks, yet Rosie said they had a busy day ahead of them and acted like he should already know of the proceedings. Again, he glanced over at the young woman who stared resolutely out the window, observing passersby and taking in the scenery.

"What?" 

John blinked, finally pinpointing what is hung-over brain had told him was wrong.

"You've looked at me questioningly seven times in the last five minutes, John," Rosie said to the window. "What is it?"

"You've got an American accent," he blurted.

She looked over to him, holding back a smile. "I've had this accent all morning."

"I hadn't noticed." He shook his head. "Why are you speaking American?"

She huffed a laugh and turned back to watch the streets. "Probably because I am American."

"What? Why didn't you ever tell me?" he asked, miffed at the deception.

"It's my first reaction when coming to a new country to don the native language," she replied with a shrug. "Helps blend in, so I don't stick out like a sore thumb. I decided I had better let you know now than to find out from," she paused a moment, icy eyes flicking to him, "someone else." 

"I never would have noticed if you hadn't have changed it," he said. "I've become rather good at placing accents over the years, too. I doubt anyone would have been able to find you out if you'd kept at it." 

She hummed in acknowledgement, making a face that clearly stated she knew who could and that he should also know, but was being dense.

He scowled at her. "Why do you keep doing that?" 

She raised her brows. "Doing what?"

"Acting as if I'm the last person to catch on," he said.

"Because you are," she replied. "It's cool, you're still in denial."

"I'm what?" John was beyond confused now. What had he missed?

A sharp rap from the front partition broke his thoughts. "You're here."

Rosie thanked him with a smile and gave the man a wad of bills.

"Where did you get that money?" he asked, sliding out behind her onto the sidewalk.

"A mutual friend." She smirked like it was a joke, walking on and leaving John to catch up.

John laughed without humor, tired of being messed with. "You and I don't have mutual friends. You just came to London."

"Well, I say friend," she said. "I follow his situations. You know him far better than I do."

"Oh, do- I..." His voice trailed off as they approached the entrance to the destination John had not bothered to observe. The crest of St. Bartholomew's hospital gleamed in white on the glass door. He stopped dead where he was, dread settling in his gut. He looked to the left and saw a little bench and just five feet in front of it...

He blinked. Coattails snapped in the wind just before a sickening thud crashed into solid concrete. Blood slicked the pavement in front of him covering the face of his best friend, the man he couldn't save, the man he so desperately--

"John."

He became aware of a thin hand gripping his shaking shoulder. Chilled fingers brushed over his forehead, wiping the cold sweat from his brow.

"Listen to me John," Rosie's voice spoke calmly in his ear. "It's not real. It is not real." 

He gasped out a sob, tears stinging his eyes. "How can you _say_ that? I watched him. I _watched_ him jump, right here." 

Her eyes hardened as she looked at him, and she turned to glower at the door to the hospital as if it had done her a personal wrong. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I should have taken you around to the back entrance."

He inhaled a deep breath, forcing the sudden, rampaging emotions into check and tearing his eyes from the offending area. "I'm leaving." 

"No!" Rosie grabbed hold of his jacket sleeve.

"No," he said, anger bubbling up. "I've got enough memories floating about with you around, I don't need the extra help."

"What if I could prove it?" she said desperately.

His eyes narrowed. "Prove what?"

She swallowed. "That it isn't real."

He glared daggers at her. Of course it was real. He had seen it. He had felt the stagnant pulse point with his own fingertips, felt the pain for months after the fact. _It had fucking happened._

"Please." Her eyes pleaded with him. "You have to see it again to understand."

"What do you mean 'again'?" he asked.

"John." She took hold of his hand.

He sighed, defeated, and gestured for her to move on.

She smiled sadly and led him into the building, up a flight of stairs, aggravating his knee to no end, and into a hallway that was quite familiar. Too familiar. He pushed back the memories that threatened to haunt him as she paused in front of _the door_ , the very first one, the door that had been opened to his new life. 

Rosie spared him one last nervous glance before she pushed it ajar.

It was like one of his memories. He limped forward and observed a man who was impossibly thin and pale, a man who was beautiful in his intense focus upon the microscope before of him. John watched as he hummed and adjusted the stage for better focus, his deep aubergine shirt pulling across his-

Wait. Aubergine? He had been wearing white that first day, a white that has made him impossibly ethereal. 

The man looked up, one dark curl slipping over his forehead. He smiled when he saw John stop in shock and sighed as if in relief.

"John," the man said. "You came." 

John merely stared at the shade in front of him, lips parted in shock. For a brief second his eyes flicked to Rosie in confirmation. Yes it was reality. She had also been looking at the man with a vague tension. He turned to stare again.

The man took a deep breath, schooling his features into and indifferent mask and stepping toward John. 

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"Bloody hell," John gasped in the air his lungs had refused him just a moment ago. " _Sherlock._ " 

Sherlock's mouth quirked up into the half-smile that he only used when he thought John was being endearing. John's breath caught in his throat again.

It really was him. The dream was memory. His best friend had actually come back from the dead.

That _bastard_.

Suddenly, John saw red. Before he knew it, his fist flashed out and connected with Sherlock's face, sending the man crashing to the floor. 

"You fucking prat!" John screamed, advancing on the fallen man. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Sherlock's eyes widened. "John, I-" 

"No. No I don't want to hear a word." He paused to take a deep, searing breath. "You left me here, and I-" his voice broke. "Don't speak to me. Ever. Again."

With that, he stalked out, cane forgotten on the floor behind him, slamming the door shut on Sherlock's shocked and pained face. His breaths came in short bursts as his heart pounded painfully, frantically in his chest. 

He hadn't made it halfway down the steps before his knee gave out and he crumpled to the floor, his wracking sobs echoing loud throughout the empty stairwell.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Sherlock watched helplessly as John retreated through the door. His cheek throbbed against his palm, a bruise already forming, but that wasn't the part of him that truly stung. His _heart_ ached as the door slammed shut. He slid his hand over his eyes and into his artfully ruffled hair, ruining the work he had put into it.

He had known John would be angry with him, but this? Sherlock had lost him, his best and only friend.

"That went pretty well." 

Sherlock slowly raised his eyes to the girl hovering over him. "Well?" he breathed. "That went _well_?" 

She smiled sympathetically at him, a warmth in her cool eyes. "You didn't think he would be _happy_ to see you, did you?" 

"I had hoped." He sounded defeated, even to himself.

She sighed. "Hope is for the desperate and weak." 

He snorted and looked away. Yes, he was definitely desperate for John and therefore weak. 

"You are obviously neither of those things," she continued.

"And how would you know?" he snapped. "You've been there done that, I suppose? Hmm?"

"Yes, I have," she replied lightly.

He snorted. "Unlikely."

"You have no idea what I have been through," she said, her tone dropping a few degrees. "If you are so ready to give up now, you will never get him back."

"Is that a challenge?" he growled.

"No." Her eyes had turned to daggers. "It's a fact." 

A frustrated sigh escaped his lips. He had no desire to deal with petty analyses. "Who _are_ you?"

She smirked. "Rosie." 

"I suppose you don't have a surname," he said, quickly losing interest in the annoying girl.

"Now that would be telling," she replied. "You're better than that." 

He sneered. "What are you doing here, if you are so beyond our level? Why do you stay after running for so long?"

She pressed her lips together and considered a moment. "I so far have found London to be a pretty safe place. And interesting. It's easy to gauge the right reaction before the fact, abut you can never guess what John is going to do next. It's refreshing." 

Sherlock's fists clenched at the mention of John. She was using John, putting him in possible harm's way. Too much danger. He had worked months and months to clear out any threat to John's person.

He rose from the ground, eyes sharp and dangerous, hovering over the girl in the most menacing way possible. "You will not touch him," he hissed as he took another step into her personal space. 

She didn't back down one step, her body adorning the relaxed and ready stance of a soldier as her eyes conveyed the same iciness as their color. "Why would I? He's accounted for."

"He is not a commodity," Sherlock snarled.

"Funny, you keep acting like he's yours," she replied. "And I keep confirming it." 

"You are placing him in harm's way, and I will not stand for it." He took another step closer, his body just inches from hers. "Your mistakes will not hurt him, I will make sure of it." 

Her head tilted as she stared up at him challengingly. "You don't think I can defend?" 

"I think you only defend yourself," he said.

"John Watson is the second person I trust most in the world," she countered. "I would never let him die."

He didn't trust her. She was an unknown quantity, a risk. His hand slipped to his belt.

"You're the third, if you were wondering." 

His fingers clasped around a cold metal handle. "I wouldn't trust me if I were you." He attacked, flicking open the pen knife he had stolen from his very first kill and whipping it straight toward her face. 

The surprise blow never landed. In fact, his arm had barely moved before it was stopped in its tracks. He felt a quick nudge to the back of his knee, pushing it out from under him and throwing him off balance. Top heavy, he was manhandled backwards, stumbling until he slammed into a counter, his hands scrambling in an attempt to find proper leverage. Thin fingers grasped his wrist, nails digging into flesh before slamming the armed hand onto the edge of the granite, loosening his grip on the weapon. Before he knew it, the knife was gone and the heel of a hand pushed his chin up, the cool touch of his own blade caressing his throat.

"I think it's funny," the girl said, not even out of breath. "How you don't trust me, you attack me, yet this morning when you left me instructions, you knew I would get him here." 

Sherlock looked down his nose to see her watching him with curious eyes.

"You know I care about John, or you would never have left me with him," she continued. "So why this? What is with the attack? In a public place no less. It doesn't make sense."

He sighed. "I thought you were meant to be smart." 

She blinked coolly at him, not rising to the bait. "This was an experiment wasn't it? You wanted to see how skilled I was, so you'd be prepared."

"True," he conceded. 

"Well, I took you down, the man who has disassembled an entire underground network of thieves and murderers in a matter of a couple years, in less than five seconds. What did you manage to find out?" she asked, not quite letting up on the pressure at his throat. 

"Military training, though obviously not with any official organization, probably with an ex-con of some sort that has undercover and stealth practice. The way you held your body and used myself against me is a special form that is taught to women and others who do not have brute force on their side. Your trainer had to at least be an officer to have that knowledge. You use your mind to fight, as evidenced when you targeted my height and thinner stature, but you didn't receive that skill from your teacher, you honed it on your own when you ran." 

"Hmm, that makes me feel kinda good about myself." She smiled. "Well, between the two of us, I think we will be able to keep him safe, don't you?"

He sneered. "I don't need your help." 

"Well, that's just too damn bad, huh," she replied. 

"Piss off," he spat.

"And the same to you," she sighed, stepping back and examining the razor-like blade in her hand. She glanced at Sherlock's wrists where the shirt was buttoned closed.

"I think I'll keep this," she said."You don't need it anymore, do you?" And she turned and walked out, door sliding softy shut behind her. 

Sherlock sighed, relaxing now that the girl was out of the room. She was far more lethal than he had predicted, but at the same time carried a protective warmth about her. It was no wonder John was fond of her, for he trusted his gut instinct far more than Sherlock ever had. She was still dangerous, still a threat, even if she wanted to shield John. 

He felt lighter now that the knife was gone. It was true, he didn't really need it any more now that he was home, but it had been a comfort and a burden that he had secretly been carrying. The blade had only been used in the most desperate of times, when his life was in severe danger, or when he couldn't look at himself in the mirror anymore, when he needed to feel something, _anything_. 

But the girl, what was her name? Rosie? Yes. Rosie was right. It was a crutch. Now he had John. Well, he would have John. He just needed to explain. He _had_ to have him. There was no if; he knew that now, after months of surviving without the doctor. Sherlock needed that companionship, he needed the friendship back at least...

At the _very_ least.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

" _Where is she?_ "

The young man smiled, chin pressed into his shoulder, rattling the chains above him with the subtle movement of his silent laughter. "Were you going for the Batman quote there?"

With a whoosh and a crack, searing pain flared another stripe across his back. He hissed in a breath and clenched his fists a little tighter, though the smirk stayed in place, even as another four lashes branded themselves to his already ravaged skin.

"You are an impertinent little jackass, aren't you?" said the rough, commanding voice behind him. He heard the soft drip of blood on concrete as the whip was shaken out.

The chained man lolled his head back with a slow, suggestive grin. "Only for you, sweetheart."

The colonel growled in anger, and immediately hands yanked at the captive's hair, pulling at the sharp bonds at the man's wrists and stretching his neck to the point of breaking. A large Bowie knife was pressed to his throat in an instant and, all the while, the young man grinned like he had won a prize.

"I will kill you right now. After all these years, I will finally get to cut out that smart-ass tongue and slit your goddamn throat," the soldier said.

"What are you hesitating for?" the young man asked, lunatic smile still painted on his lips. "Just do it." 

The colonel took a deep breath and pressed the edge of the knife tighter to the man's neck.

"Sebastian."

The colonel dropped the prisoner immediately with a disgusted noise as peals of laughter echoed around the room.

"That was a close one, Sebby," the man gasped, his arms straining against the cuffs as his body attempted to slide down to the damp and dirty floor. He squinted up at the newcomer and smudged the thin line of blood at his throat with his sweaty upper arm. "Good thing daddy was there to stop you, or you would have done something you would have regretted." 

Sebastian's eyes flamed and he immediately landed a hard kick to exposed ribs. The man gasped in and coughed out another laugh, curling in on himself in pain.

"I said enough, Sebastian," the order came, impatient. The colonel backed off, standing at attention before his commander even as he glared daggers at the beaten and bloodied captive. 

The chained man wheezed and spat out a little blood before addressing his long time captor with a crudely portrayed Irish accent. "Good day to you, mate. Been a while since I seen you personally."

Cold, dead eyes stared back at him, no playfulness left to spare after so many years. A true, melodious Irish brogue spoke, "I would have thought you would be tired of baiting Sebastian by now." 

"Are you kidding?" the captive snorted. "This is the most fun I've had in weeks." He made a kissy face to the soldier and smirked when the man flinched. "How long has it been since I saw you, Jimmy? A month or two?"

James Moriarty's face twitched in irritation. "Five." 

"Damn," the captive laughed. "You lose something?" 

Anger darkened Moriarty's brow. "How do you know-"

"You are _way_ too pissed off right now to have won," he interrupted. "It looks like you might want a little something from me." 

Moriarty's eyes lit up infinitesimally, but it was a cold light, a spark ignited that was meant to burn up the world. "Yes, I rather do." 

The smile slipped off the captive's face. He calculated the fear that had coated his stomach like acid at that look. Nothing good could come of it. That meant that there was a plan, where, before, there had been none. He watched, reserved, as the snake of a man before him stepped carefully forward cornering his wounded prey. 

"Sherlock Holmes appears to be alive," Moriarty said.

His stomach swept up in delight and a thin smile rose unbidden to his lips. There was hope, he had a chance--

"I am willing to give you exactly what you want if you give me the hat detective and his blogger in a neat little package. You may even use Sherlock to look for your prize if you so please, but in the end he will be mine just as you have been mine. You shall," Moriarty paused, "trade places, if you will. And you will run free." 

The young man licked his split and dry lips, his golden hair, matted with blood, falling lank into his eyes. He had been driven nearly insane the past five years with the torture he had endured: slicing pain of a scalpel across his chest, searing irons pressed to the soft skin of his legs, stabbing aches of broken bones. Each time he was healed in complete solitude, silence, with minimal human interaction before the next round began. The only thing that had kept him himself was his desperate sense of humor and the thought of being free and searching for the one and only thing that made him feel safe, swathed in the steady equality of companionship with just a touch of heat.

He took a shaky breath, dropping his eyes to the floor in shame as he made his decision. 

"When do I start?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, this chapter gave me some huge struggles and I had to rework it to get past my stupid block. Lots of love to my beta hoper_dreamer, thinking of her waiting for this chapter was my motivation. Hopefully updates will be quicker as the story starts to pick up. 
> 
> Thanks a bazillion to anyone who reads this. First tries are the hardest ones, so lots of love to you <3

John was tired of feelings. He was sat in the stairwell with tears streaming down his face for the second time in 18 hours, his head pounding relentlessly against his skull. He needed a glass of water and a really good sleep. And possibly some amnesia. 

God, he could hardly believe it. Sherlock was alive and apparently healthy. Where the hell had the man gone for the past two years? Just solving cases across Europe, having a grand old time without John to bog him down, no doubt. Meanwhile John had been in London, suffering, thinking about shoving his gun in his mouth and just pulling the trigger. 

His hands tightened into fists and his nails bit tiny crescents into his palms as the pain built up again. It had all been a lie. Everything he had felt these past three years didn't even matter. Why? What was so damn important to Sherlock Bloody Holmes that he would lie so plainly to him? Or was it just for the fun of manipulating him, testing the reactions of _ordinary_ humans? 

He was just working himself into a right state when the door creaked open and a head with long dark hair and piercing blue eyes peeked in. 

Rosie smiled softly. "Found you." She moved in and sat down on the stair next to him, setting his cane down on the step just below his feet. He couldn't believe he had forgotten it so easily. Damn that man. 

He shook his head and turned his attention to her, watching as she twirled a tiny penknife between her fingers expertly. He had yet to get used to everything this girl could do. She was far too young to know how to incapacitate men and wield a knife and hide her accent in any number of countries. 

"Where did you get that thing?" he asked, staring at the weapon that flashed and spun between her fingers.

She smirked. "I stole it." 

"From-" he swallowed- "Sherlock?" 

Her smile became slightly pained and she glanced at the door. "Yeah. He was asking for it, being annoying, so I nicked it." 

He said nothing. He didn't doubt her words for a second, Sherlock was always asking for it. 

"You need to hear him out, John." 

He sighed. "I don't think I can be in the same room as him, much less listen to any of his poor excuses for reasons." 

"I think you will be surprised by his answers," she said. 

He snorted. "When am I not surprised by him?"

She looked at him, twisting a piece of hair between her fingers. "He cares about you a lot more than you believe." 

He merely shook his head. "If you say so." 

"I know so," she replied. "Where would you be without him John?" 

The question hit him like a ton of bricks. He had asked himself this question day in and day out since he had met the ridiculous man. He knew the answer well.

"Six feet under." 

She nodded. "He saved you once, and yet you won't even give him the chance to explain himself."

He stared down at his hands, at the little red abrasions in his palm where the nails had cut through, and contemplated this. John had assumed the worst of the man who had irrevocably turned his life around. He didn't actually know the reason for the whole lie. Maybe it wasn't as sociopathic as he had imagined. 

"You're right," he sighed. 

"I always am," she replied, then paused for a breath. "So."

John glanced over, catching sight of a playful smirk before it was hastily smothered. 

"Yes?" he inquired.

"When are you going to see him again?" 

The two caught each other's eyes and burst out laughing. The release of tension left John's shoulders, echoing up the stairwell with their unrestrained giggles. When they finally quieted down, he wiped the tears from his face and glanced over to Rosie, who sighed.

"God I haven't laughed like that in years," he said.

Rosie's smile turned wistful. "Me either, been too busy."

John looked at her, really looked, and realized that she must have been very lonely wherever she had been before. She still looked tired and mussed, despite the fact that she had showered and slept over the past few days. Her cheeks twitched at the effort of keeping up a genuine smile, like she hadn't done so in years. Her shoulders seemed hunched over, worn by life. He recognized the signs of defeat when he saw them. He had taken to identifying each one in the mirror every morning. 

"Where have you been?" he asked carefully. "What have you been doing?" 

Her lips fell a little, sad, now. "I guess you could say I've been making like _The Hobbit._ "

He chuckled. "Walking and hiding and walking some more?"

"Pretty much," she sighed.

"What were you hiding from?" 

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter. But you're safe now." 

His eyebrows scrunched together. "What do you mean?" 

"Sherlock's here," she said.

He frowned. "I know how to protect myself."

She let out an harsh little laugh. "I know that, but you two fare better when you're with each other."

He thought about Sherlock wandering the world by himself, coming and going on his own whim and pursuing his interests without John trailing behind him, slowing him down. "I'm not sure about that." 

"Well, it's not like you know what goes on in his mind," she said. 

He sighed heavily. "It looks like I'm going to have to talk to him."

She beamed. "Good." 

He watched as she stood up and handed him his cane. "That is if I can stay in the same room as him for longer than 10 seconds." 

"Well, he is a bit of a douche," she said, holding a hand out to help him to his feet.

"A douche?" he laughed. "Is that some kind of American thing?" 

She rolled her eyes and led the way out, muttering, "You Brits, thinking you're so much better." 

He laughed, slowly following after her. He imagined living with Sherlock again, chasing down criminals with three instead of two. First though, he thought, watching Rosie's back as she waved for a cab, they would need to chase down her past. There was very little chance that Rosie would reveal it on her own if they asked. It would be a challenge; she was a puzzle of a girl. Maybe her puzzle would be enough to bring he and Sherlock together again.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"You're going to be intolerable aren't you?" 

Finally, Lestrade had stopped gaping and had begun to go about making tea. Typical British male. Avoiding emotions like a professional. Not ten minutes ago, when Sherlock had come to him, unable to return to Baker Street without John, The Detective Inspector had been the picture of shock. Then immediately, he had hugged Sherlock. It was not an experience Sherlock was keen to repeat.

"I'm going to be intolerable?" Sherlock scoffed. "Have you looked at yourself lately? Insomniac, three cold cases laying on your coffee table alone, who knows how many you have in your office. You've lost nine, no ten, pounds since I left. Finally divorced that horrid, cheating wife of yours, but you're still arguing over your daughter. That more than likely came about during your time out of work before you received your formal apology from the NSY. You haven't had time since to gain the weight back considering, lately, you've been sustaining energy purely on coffee and cigarettes. It doesn't help you solve the cases though. You've lost your touch, Lestrade. I leave you for two years and all the observation I have ever taught you is gone. Imbecile." He flopped himself on the tiny couch facing the cushions and curled up in his Belstaff. God he had missed this coat, with its drama and warmth. He'd missed so much from London. 

"Yeah, and you're a bloody ray of sunshine yourself," Lestrade grumbled. "No wonder John gave you a good wallop when he saw you." 

"I don't want to talk about John," Sherlock growled into the pillow. 

"Fine." There was a tap of porcelain on wood as he set the extra cup of tea out for Sherlock. "Why did you do it, then, huh? Why did you jump off that building?"

Sherlock conceded to the subject change, the man had been caught up in it after all. "You, Mrs. Hudson, and John were targeted by snipers controlled by Moriarty. He shot himself so that I had no choice but to jump to save your lives. From there, no one could know I was still alive lest the rest of the network go after you. Then, with the help of my insufferable brother, I took down each sect of Moriarty's web before returning home." 

"Bloody hell," Lestrade sighed. "You don't think you could have told John that before-"

"I said I don't want to talk about John," Sherlock hissed.

"Sherlock, the first words out of your mouth when you walked in, weren't 'Hello, Greg' or 'Look, I'm still alive' they were 'John punched me and never wants to see me again'. I think I know what's on your mind right now." 

Sherlock was silent. Lestrade was right. He was being _obvious_. Disgusting. Suddenly, he sat up and faced the Detective Inspector full in the face, delicately picking up the tea and taking a sip. 

"He didn't exactly give me a chance before he punched me," he said.

"I'm not surprised," Lestrade laughed. "You've got a helluva shiner there." 

Sherlock sighed heavily. "Things are-" he paused, searching for the correct word, "different." 

Lestrade snorted. "No shit. You went and offed yourself and left John to pick up the pieces. I would have to say things are different between you two. I'll bet you don't even know the things he almost did while you were gone." He paused, giving the table a heavy look. "I _still_ can't believe you are here right now. I cant even imagine what this has been like for John."

Sherlock gritted his teeth. "I may have miscalculated the effect my loss would have on him."

Lestrade stared. " _Miscalculated?_ " He shook his head. "How could you have miscalculated that?" 

"He had a life during our time together," Sherlock said. "He had his work and rugby mates and all the insipid girls to distract him. I was barely a friend."

"Barely a friend," Lestrade echoed. "Is that what he is to you, then?"

"No," Sherlock bit back. "John is essential. John is everything that isn't The Work and even then he is more than I could ever deserve." 

And with that he realized he had just shown his hand. Lestrade wasn't stupid. Surely he would pick up on the unfamiliar emotions between his words. With that, he figured he had nothing to lose. He gave into the sentiment he had long held back.

"I missed him. A lot." 

The sliver haired man leaned back and stared, looking mildly shocked at the statement. Sherlock supposed Lestrade wasn't used to seeing him have emotions, let alone making declarations of need for a person. He looked down at his hands as Lestrade took a cautious sip.

"It's about bloody time you figured it out."

Sherlock looked up sharply as Lestrade grinned into his mug.

"Who else are you going to find that tolerates your insanity? And John actually _likes_ it." His wide smile broadened. "They'd have to be as bloody insane as Moriarty. Good on you, for figuring that out. The only really good thing to come of this."

It was Sherlock's turn to be shocked, not even reacting when Lestrade's text tone sounded. How had _Lestrade_ known how much he needed John before he had? He supposed it might have had to do with his stunted emotions. Lestrade had had relationships and friendships (however unsuccessful) far more often than Sherlock had, making him more likely to identify potential interactions and subsequent reactions between people. Sherlock needed to practice it more, those classifications could be useful in his line of work.

Of course, everything would still be dull if John wasn't there.

There was a another ping followed quickly by Lestrade chuckling at his screen. Sherlock broke from his mind's restless oscillation and he frowned at the policeman. Lestrade glanced up before gesturing with his mug to the files on the table. "You want to take a look at these? Preoccupy your mind for a bit?"

"Who texted you?" Sherlock asked instead.

"That friend of John's who helped bring down a sexual slavery organization yesterday. Mary Morstan she said, though it was a fake name. She was rather tired and concussed at the time." Lestrade replied.

Sherlock scowled. "She told me her name was Rosie." 

"You've met her then?" Lestrade asked.

"Unfortunately," he replied.

Lestrade laughed and typed out a response on his phone. "Figures you two would butt heads. You're so bloody alike." 

"We are not," he growled. "She is big-headed, self-centered, and not nearly as clever as me." 

Lestrade merely snorted. "And you've just proved my point." 

Sherlock ignored the jibe. "What did she tell you?" 

"She's trying to help," Lestrade said.

"Well, I don't trust her." Sherlock stood up and snatched the phone from Lestrade's loose fingers.

"Hey!" he protested but Sherlock had already paced into the kitchen scrolling through the recent texts. She had used John's phone; obviously, she had no money for her own. They read:

_Has Sherlock turned up at your house? No doubt he's not at St. Bartholomew's anymore. --MM_

_Yeah, he's here. Why do you have John's phone?_

_Excellent. Give him a case, I'll take care of the rest. --MM_

_Take care of what?_

_Getting them back together of course :) --MM_

_On it. By the by, what the hell did you do to him? He's so opposed to you. Thinks you aren't trustworthy._

Just as he was finishing the phone buzzed in his hand. He opened the new text.

 _I gave him a little taste of his own medicine. And stole his knife.--MM_

"Sherlock, c'mon," Lestrade said over his shoulder. "Have a little faith in humanity. A case would take your mind off of... things, anyway." 

Sherlock scowled at the screen before him. How desperate was he to accept help from this perfect stranger? He wouldn't. But maybe a case _would_ help. He could show John that things were still the same as they had been, and if he pooled his resources, he may just be able to get John to tag along, under the pretense of watching his back of course. John wouldn't let him go off on his own, would he? And there was no better relationship than one made in a high pressure situation, after all. 

He pivoted around, shoving the phone back to its owner and honing on to the files sitting on the coffee table. One of them was a different color than the rest. He snatched it up and began to look through the pages asking, "Why do you have a stalking report? It's not under your division." 

"Oh, that?" Lestrade shrugged. "Funny you picked it up, you're the reason I got it actually. The woman said she didn't trust any of the Met except me after your fall, and wanted to tell someone about it. She wasn't quite sure if anyone would believe that something was wrong, thought that maybe since I worked with you, I would take a look and figure things out. It kind of looks like she just has a distant admirer. We can't do anything unless there's an assault anyway." 

An excellent case to start with. A loyal supporter in need of help, the press would eat up his return and it would set him up for more cases. Well, more if John kept his blog going. At this rate, there wouldn't be any decent ones. Sherlock scanned the information again. "A distant admirer? Hardly. When did you receive this?"

"Yesterday, just before John called in with his case," Lestrade replied, brow creasing as he moved to look at the report over Sherlock's shoulder. "Why what do you see?" 

"I see that this woman could quite possibly be already kidnapped and forced into a marriage by your incompetence." He moved toward the door rearranging his scarf into a more suitable position. "If it didn't happen last night, then it most definitely will tonight. I need to gather supplies. I'll contact you when I need your help." 

"Wait- Sherlock!" Lestrade caught his elbow. "How do you know all this? And I don't even have your number." 

"Use your eyes Lestrade, the answer is right in front of you. Now, I really must go. The safety of a very independent woman hangs in the balance. I'll text." 

And with that, he swept out the door while formulating a plan of action. He gave a fleeting thought to contact John, but to do so soon after their fight would probably not be the most prudent of actions. He would try to get into the swing of things before asking for his best friend's forgiveness. In the meantime, he had some criminals to catch.

____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Lestrade huffed a sigh as the tails of that famous coat disappeared behind the slam of his front door. He had to smirk in the aftermath of the consulting detective's hurricane. He'd missed his insanely brilliant outbursts, even if they proved difficult in terms of protocol when the man ran off on his own. They got results though, and that was what mattered.

He looked down at his phone screen from where Sherlock had hastily shoved it back at him. Memories of Sherlock pre-John Watson floated to the forefront of his mind. Pupils dilated and breaths coming fast, high as a kite, but his deductions were spot on. Then, when he was clean, the hostility was still enough for him to throw the genius off more than one crime scene. When John had come, the doctor acted as a buffer between Sherlock and the rest of the world, and things had gotten infinitely better. 

It was obvious today that Sherlock was painfully aware of John's absence, and had been for quite a while now. If John wasn't there, there was about a 95% chance that the mad man would get himself into some kind of trouble.

DI Lestrade smiled affectionately and typed out a text to John Watson's phone.

_I didn't even have to try. He just picked one up and ran out the door. Try to send help, he's likely to get himself killed for real at the rate his mind is going._

With the address given in the report attached, he sent the message and hoped that Miss Morstan, or whoever she was, would be clever enough to get the two idiots to talk.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long time between updates, I apparently suck at sticking to my own timelines. Nevertheless, here it is. Thanks to hoper_dreamer for checking through this chapter for me, had some awkward mistakes =/ She's brilliant.

John came back to the sofa carrying two mugs of tea only to find Rosie sprawled across it, scrolling through his phone with a tiny smirk on her face.

"When did you get that?" he asked, setting one cup down on the coffee table and checking his pockets.

Rosie glanced up. "Oh, I took this ages ago." 

He rolled his eyes and huffed out a sigh. It figured she would start taking his things; it was one more way she was the same as his consulting detective. 

"Who are you texting?" 

She pulled the phone closer to herself as if he had the ability to read it from his spot six feet away, upside down. "None of your beeswax." 

He raised a brow. "What are we five? It’s my phone." 

"It's my conversation," she retorted.

They stared at each other for a moment. 

"Lestrade has a case for us," she said looking down at the screen again.

"Is now really a good time?" he asked. "What with all that's going on, I don't think-"

"Will you help or not?" she asked. 

He sighed. Maybe a case would be a nice distraction. All these emotions were turning him around. He needed something to preoccupy his mind until he could properly face them, and a case used to always do the trick. So long as it was with Rosie and not Sherlock.

"I suppose I could be useful while I'm here," he said.

Rosie beamed. "Excellent. I need you to go to this address." She handed the phone back to him and pointed to the screen. "Shouldn't take you more than thirty minutes." 

"This is half-way across London," he said. 

"Yes, you'll need to call me in an hour. I think there is a subway that has a stop near there." 

"The tube?" He shook his head. "And how am I meant to call you? You don't have a phone." 

"I'm keeping yours," she said getting up and snatching the device from his fingers. She scribbled down the address on a slip of paper from his desk. "You can use a public phone. I have to go ask Lestrade a few questions about details in the meantime." 

"What am I supposed to be doing?" he asked. 

She swung her coat around her shoulders. "Look for anything out of place or suspicious. _Do not _go into the building. Just take a look around the area and give me a scouting report. You're a military man, surely you know what I'm talking about."__

He grimaced and shrugged. “If you say so.” 

"You'll be fine, John," she said, swinging open the door. "Call in an hour, or I'll be rushing out to save your sorry ass." 

Then she flounced out the door, leaving behind only a sense of nostalgia. John shook his head, smiling, and pulled his cane in hand to head out to the tube.

~~~~

He looked down at the paper in his hand and peered up at the building in front of him. It was a library, an innocuous library with nothing suspicious whatsoever to mark it as out of place. Maybe their client worked there? Possibly it was running a cartel of some kind. John didn’t know how he supposed to make any kind of progress when he had no clue what to look for. And Rosie had even said he shouldn’t go in, just ‘take a look around’. What did that even mean? 

He limped down the street, keeping an eye out for suspicious persons or storefronts, peering into dark alleys, finding only a stray cat and rubbish in his efforts. Just when he had thought that Rosie was completely bonkers and had given it all up as a bad job, a flash of blue caught his eye across the way.

He crossed the street carefully and crouched in the mouth of the alley, finding a familiar scarf. He snatched the soft cashmere up between his gloved fingers before pressing it to his face and breathing in. He rolled his eyes. It was a Christmas gift from years ago, their first one in the flat together.

 _Of course_ Sherlock would already be on the case. But what reason would he have for just leaving his clothing lying about London? John snorted. The git wouldn’t.

He glanced around once more. There was a bike, crashed, with its wheel bent out of shape, shoved haphazardly against the brick wall. The gravel and trash on the pavement was scattered, recently moved, but what was even more telling were the drops of blood, still fresh, leading deeper into the alley.

John’s heart did a stutter step. No. He had just gotten Sherlock back. He couldn’t lose him like this, so many steps behind, neither of them having the chance to talk about what had happened. John hadn’t even had the time to tell Sherlock he was forgiven.

Forgetting all about Rosie, John took off, following the trail. The blood must have only been lost recently; none of it was even remotely dry, just splashes on the messy gravel. Images popped into his head of Sherlock, head ripped open, blood on the pavement. He blinked hard. Not now. Not _now_.

The trail stopped at the steps of a tiny church, the wooden doors long since new. The stained glass windows were thick with grime, impossible to see through. The place clearly hadn’t seen a service in quite a while.

John approached cautiously, one step at a time as he examined the entrance. On the jamb was a bloody hand print, smeared as if it had been pulled away with a rough jerk.

He sighed in relief. If Sherlock was alert enough to leave marks on the last place he had been then he was most definitely okay.

John licked his lips and straightened his shoulders as he reached forward and pushed the door open. Cautiously, _why didn’t he bring his gun?_ he peered in to the entryway. The carpet was mouldy and torn up, each of the doors leading into the church sealed shut but one. It appeared to be deserted, so he stepped in, the wood creaking beneath his feet. He spotted a drop of blood at the base of the door and headed toward it. 

Suddenly, his foot caught on something that hadn’t been there previously and he crashed to the hard floor. A body landed on top of him, crushing the air from his lungs and smacking his head to the ground. His hands were forced quickly behind his back and zip tied together as he attempted to gasp in air. As John’s vision swam, a man with hard eyes and an angry grimace pulled a hood over his eyes and whispered, “Sorry, sir. Wrong time wrong place.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sherlock rested his aching head against the back of the pew, feeling the bruise blooming on his temple as he peered across the few metres separating him and the woman from their unfortunate captors. She was passed out on the stone-flagged floor, drugged from her morning breakfast. Her ex-boyfriend, soon to forcibly be her husband, paced up and down the center aisle, hands flexing on his pistol. Just an hour ago, Sherlock had donned his coat and set off to find the perpetrators, only to come across them in time to be a witness of the bike accident, the drugged client crashing hard into the alley wall. The man, Kyle Renner, and his brother, a deluded and greedy minister, cut his arm and gave him a good whack on the head before taking both him and the woman to this old church. Now, Renner insisted on wearing a hole into the cold floors and growling in impatience. The brother had gone out to find one more witness to the illegal marriage that was about to happen.

And, oh how incredibly _dull_ this had turned out to be. Lestrade would hopefully be here within the next twenty to thirty minutes depending on his mental acuity and London traffic. Sherlock was betting on thirty.

“Ky, we got one. Not a cop, he doesn’t have a badge or a gun.” 

Renner sighed heavily. “Aw, the outside of this looks a bit suspicious doesn’t it? I hadn’t expected anyone to show up and try to stop me.” He threw a dirty look in Sherlock’s direction. Sherlock merely smiled benignly in reply, twisting his cut forearm against his bonds to let a little more blood drip on the ties and seat for later evidence.

“Yes, it was quite an inconvenience,” the brother sighed, pushing the other captive in through the door.

Sherlock caught sight of the man, clad in jeans and a terribly familiar button down-cardigan combination and felt his stomach drop out beneath him. His jaw clenched hard as John stumbled, head covered with a pillowcase and hands tied behind his back.

“On the floor, mate,” Renner commanded, pushing lightly on John’s shoulder. John complied, kneeling smoothly, though his shoulders were tensed and ready.

On the floor beside him, the woman groaned and lolled her head, eyes fluttering open a full forty minutes before Sherlock had anticipated the drug would wear off. Renner was apparently better at drugging people than he had imagined.

Things were about to get very interesting.

Renner smiled as his girlfriend ran a hand over her eyes, blinking hard against the light. “Oh isn’t this just excellent timing. Cassandra, love, wake up. This man needs your help.”

Cassandra snuffled and began to sit up. Sherlock pulled against the bonds at his wrists and feet, but they were tight, leaving no wiggle room, and no chance of slipping away. Renner put his pistol to John’s head.

“Ky?” Casandra asked. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

“It’s time to get married, love,” Renner said. “I know you turned me down, but I was thinking on it and ever since you came into the money, you’ve become such a little brat.” He caressed the side of John’s covered face with the tip of the gun. “All those millions of dollars from that long lost aunt. Such bullshit. But I will have you.”

She blinked a few times, her mind finally clearing up from the drugs as her eyes widened at the scene before her. “What the actual hell, Kyle? What is this about? Who is that?”

Renner looked down at John. “He’s just a man who was going to try and stop me. I don’t know his name, but maybe if you see his face, it will make this a whole lot faster. You wouldn’t just let him die, if you knew him a little. And that’s what I’ll do if you don’t sign off.”

He pulled the hood off John’s head and pressed the gun to his temple. Sherlock began to pull harder at the ties. If he could just slip one hand free. . . and then what would he do? The brother had taken his phone, so he couldn’t contact Lestrade. If he tried to attack, John would be shot.

“Sherlock.”

His eyes snapped to John and he could see the controlled fear and worry within the soldier. John’s eyes flicked over him, assessing him for serious injuries. Sherlock nodded in reassurance, though he figured it wouldn’t help much considering.

“Sherlock Holmes?”

Cassandra stared wide eyed at him. “I thought you were supposed to be dead!” She looked back to John. “But then this must be John Watson. What the bloody hell is going on here?”

Renner’s panicked eyes flicked between the three of them before turning to call out to his brother. “Connor! We need to get a move on. The Met are going to be here any minute."

Cassandra was smiling. “Oh you are going to get it now.”

“Shut up woman!” Renner pressed the gun to the back of John’s head. Everyone fell silent as John turned his face down and closed his eyes.

The brother rushed in with a pen and a few papers, likely the marriage license. Suddenly, an idea formed.

“He isn’t going to let you live Connor,” Sherlock called out, leaning toward the minister. “There’s no other way to do it.” 

The brother looked at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t listen to him Connor, he’s lying,” Renner said.

“The only way for him to get away with it clean is if he kills everyone in this room and blames it on you.” Sherlock scooted forward in the pew, locking eyes with the man.

“No,” Connor breathed.

“He will say it was a tragic thing. You were distraught at the thought of him getting married finally and you killed everyone except him, before turning the gun on yourself. He will cry horrible tears, but at least he got to marry the woman of his dreams.”

“Shut up!” Renner growled.

“You are telling lies,” Connor said.

“No, I am not.” Sherlock stood, and froze when Renner tightened his grip on the gun, finger hovering over the trigger. “Since his wife made no will, he will get everything, the poor widower with a tragic story, turned millionaire.”

Connor looked to his brother. “Kyle, is that true?”

Renner glared at Sherlock before turning his eyes to Connor. “No of course not, just get them to sign the damn papers okay? We’ll get out of here as soon as we can. We made all those plans remember?”

“He’s lying,” Cassandra said. “I could always tell when—“

“Shut the fuck up!” Renner screamed, forcing John’s head down even further.

Sherlock froze, not moving a muscle as he stared helplessly at the situation before him. He’d made it worse. How did he make everything _worse_? John was going to die because of him. John hadn’t forgiven him, they hadn’t had a proper talk about it like Sherlock had envisioned. Hell, neither of them had even properly made it back to 221B yet.

Renner hissed in a breath through his clenched jaw and exhaled carefully through his nose in a practiced control of anger. “Just sign the goddamn marriage license, and let’s get this over with.”

“I don’t think so.”

Out of the shadowy side entrance, a girl in tattered jeans and a dark hoodie emerged, carrying only a backpack and a long, thin rope. Sherlock recognized Rosie, the girl from the lab, realizing that she was carrying not a rope, but a fine leather whip. Renner whirled his pistol in her direction but she continued forward until she was a scant six feet away. His hands shook as she stared calmly down the barrel.

“Who are you?”

She raised an eyebrow.

His face contorted in fury. “I _will_ get this money. Nobody can stop me, I won’t let them. I’ll kill everyone in this church first, starting with Mr. Watson here.

“No!” Sherlock called out as Renner turned the gun once more to the back of John’s head, but as his finger touched the trigger, the whip curled around his wrist and jerked it away. The bullet crashed through one of the windows and the gun slid away.

Rosie unwound her whip, cold fury in her eyes, a look that made even Sherlock curl away in it's terrible familiarity. Renner scrambled to get to his weapon, but with a flick and a sharp _crack_ he collapsed, clutching at his jaw where blood spurted, no doubt with a broken mandible. Rosie flicked her whip loose again and walked calmly to the gun on the floor, turning it on the minister and gesturing for him to join his brother. He complied immediately, hands raised.

Threat neutralized, Sherlock rushed over to John and knelt in front of him. “John, are you okay? _Are you okay?_ ”

John heaved in stabilizing breaths, and lifted his head to look Sherlock in the eye. “Yes, Sherlock, I’m fine.” 

Sherlock smiled briefly in relief, but continued his worry when John started giggling and shaking his head.

“John, it’s okay,” he began, but the doctor just shook his head.

“I know it is,” he chuckled. “I just never thought I would ever say that again, ‘I’m fine, Sherlock.’” He looked Sherlock straight in the eye and grinned. “I’m fine.” 

Sherlock sighed and leaned his head down, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry, John.” 

“I forgive you, you idiot,” John said as he rested their foreheads together.

“You should know that I would do it again, if I had to,” Sherlock said.

“You’ll have to explain that one to me."

Sherlock peered hard into his eyes. “You’ll listen?”

“Yes,” John breathed. “Of course.”

Behind them, someone coughed. They pulled apart quickly and shuffled back to put more space between them. Rosie stood over them wielding a little knife and a smirk.

“Hate to break up the moment, but I figured it would be nice to get your hands free,” she said, moving behind Sherlock and slicing the ties.

Sherlock started rubbing the circulation back into his fingertips as Rosie cut John’s bonds. When John shook out his hands, she rubbed her finger on the back of his neck. He hissed in surprise.

She grimaced. “Sorry, I must have caught you when I was getting the gun. I haven’t used my whip in a while. You’ll just have a little bruise.”

John rubbed the welt on his neck. “Yeah, where did you learn how to use a whip?”

“The same place I learned how to fight.”

“So ambiguous,” John smiled up at her.

She grinned back. “Always.” 

Sherlock rose quietly, observing their nonchalant banter, how comfortable they were, even after only a few days. It had been the same with him and John, but then again, John had saved his life the first day of his acquaintance.

Rosie looked over at him and took in Sherlock’s less than pleasant expression. “I think it’s time you two had a talk, for real, don’t you think? Lestrade will be here any minute. I can take care of the case if you two want to go.” 

John looked back to Sherlock and nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”

“Cab’s outside,” she threw a thumb over her shoulder. “I already paid my half. I’ll get a ride with the Detective Inspector.”

“Thanks, Rosie,” John said. “For saving our lives and everything else.”

She shrugged. “Anything for the first friend I’ve had in years. Don’t drink too much.”

John chuckled. “Of course.” He looked back to Sherlock. “Let’s go, then, shall we?”

They walked out together and found the cab at the start of the alley, waiting. Sherlock slid in behind John and watched him carefully for any signs of anger. John was tense, of course, but he seemed more relieved than anything, even giddy. A tiny smile kept creeping up his lips as he glanced every now and then in Sherlock’s direction.

Sherlock always smiled back. Here was his chance to make things right again, like they were before.

“221B Baker Street, please.”

_______________________________________________________

Rosie woke up when John unlocked the door. She sat up immediately and walked out into the main area to greet him. The clock on the stove said it was 8:14 AM. She’d slept a perfect four hours.

John frowned as he set his keys on the desk. “I thought you would be sleeping.”

“I was,” she replied.

“In the bathroom?”

She merely shrugged. “There aren’t windows in there and you weren’t home. It was the safest place.”

John gave her an assessing look and then nodded to himself. “Glad I did that, then.”

“What?” Rosie asked as she followed him to the kitchenette where he began to make tea. “How did the talk go? Did he tell you everything?”

“That he did it to save the three of us? That he was taking apart Moriarty’s network while he was gone and he couldn’t return without them killing us? Yeah he did. Left out the details of what happened out there,” he shrugged, “but I never really talked about the war either.”

Rosie nodded, stomach clenching at the thought of the whole debacle. Sherlock Holmes really was a great man. “What are you glad you did?”

John smiled brightly at her, practically glowing. “I’m moving back into 221B.”

“Excellent,” she said. Of course she had known that John would be moving back in with Sherlock, she might not have anticipated it so soon, but it was going to happen regardless. She was glad they were starting to get along, even if it meant that she would have to put to action her plans to find a new residence. She had been thinking of smuggling her way into Scotland and hiding out in the countryside, maybe finding a job and renting a cottage.

“I talked to Mrs. Hudson about getting you into 221C for a reduced rate that I convinced Sherlock to help out until you could pay for it on your own.” John pulled down two mugs and poured the water over two tea bags, smiling. “221C’s in the basement. It doesn’t have any windows and only one door with a little bathroom. There’s a bed frame down there, but I’m sure we can work something out for a mattress—“

“Wait, wait.” Rosie blinked. “You want me to move into Baker Street with you guys?”

John gave her a look. “Of course. I won’t have you out on the streets. Do you want to go somewhere else? Sherlock says you’ve been on the move for quite some time.”

“I—yeah but,” she stopped. “Wait, you guys talked about me?”

John shrugged. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t trust you.”

“Yeah, that’s the understatement of the year.” 

“But he does want to make things up to me,” John said. “And I trust you. It really is high time you got some clothes that haven’t been worn thin and a place to sleep that isn’t a trash can. Plus you’re clever enough to start getting your own money and soon you’ll be paying him back.”

Rosie swallowed and placed her hands around the mug that he slid across the table. She wasn’t sure this was the greatest idea. If her assassins did find her, though it was getting more and more unlikely the more she researched, things would get ugly really quick. And she didn’t want to put John and Sherlock at risk.

“John, I don’t know.”

“Rosie.”

She looked at him. He seemed safe and warm in the button down and cardigan that he had worn yesterday, not at all like the man who had shot and killed a man from 100 yards with a pistol, over the shoulder of his best friend. He didn’t appear to be a deadly soldier. Then again, neither did she. She could trust this man, she knew it, and she could protect him when it came down to it. She’d proven that the day before. But she’d only gotten there in the nick of time. She’d have to do better in the future, be more observant, like Sherlock was.

She swallowed down her doubts and nodded.

John grinned from ear to ear. “Ha ha! Excellent.” He threw an arm around her shoulder and she immediately tensed, though he didn’t notice. “I’ll pack my things and we can go over there in a few hours. Then I’ll take you to the shops with Mrs. Hudson to get you something to fill your closet and get you a bed. Why don’t you catch a little more sleep? You look like you need it, love.”

She nodded with a little smile and he turned to pack his things away, a spring in his step.

She went back to the bathroom with her backpack and lay down in the tub, shoving the little pillow beneath her head and throwing the towel over her body. For a while she listened to the common noises of someone else in her space and calmed her tense body. After a few minutes of listening to John’s hums, she reached into her pack and pulled out a set of headphones and an old iPod. Pushing the earbuds in and, hitting play, she closed her eyes and relaxed, thumb tracing over the screen like a lover’s caress, and fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, apologies for the length between posts, but my life's been pretty hectic lately and it is just now settling back down. This chapter however is pretty short and it is only John's POV. Sorry, but the chapter I had written ended up being 10,000 words and considering my previous chapters were not even half that, I broke up this one into two different chapters. Hope you don't mind too much. Next chapter will be up asap seeing as its already done, but here's some tension and smiles for you. Thanks for reading ;)

The call from Lestrade was expected. There were quite a few things he and John needed to talk about after all, especially since John moved back into Baker Street. They had brought in their boxes (well, John had brought his, Rosie had her backpack slung over her shoulder) just two weeks ago. 

Things were strange. Well, strange for them anyway. Sometimes, a silence between them that was oppressive to the point of being unable to breathe hung between he and Sherlock. Sometimes, John would get angry and scream and then not speak for the entire day. What was worse, Sherlock just took it all in stride, always accepting of John's anger and coldness. John knew it wasn't fair. He couldn't let it go. The depression still manifested itself, though the cause was technically gone. 

John still woke up from nightmares in the middle of the night, but instead of silence, he heard quiet strains of violin from below and it was like being able to breathe again after months of being underwater. Every once in a while, when he got up for the day and made his way downstairs, he would be startled by Sherlock's figure poised in thought, fully dressed on the couch, but at the same time, his shoulders would sag in relief. Sometimes, John would begin reading the paper, only to catch sight of the coat on the hook by the door, and he stared at it until Sherlock returned to the room or Rosie crept up from the basement flat to break the spell.

By far the worst, though, was when Sherlock was around, and John could hardly take his eyes from him. Just the barest movements of the detective would catch John's attention and he took in all the little differences. There was a tiny scar over his eyebrow. His face was slightly more lined around his eyes and mouth. There were a few grey hairs at his temples. Sometimes, his hands shook and he startled at loud noises. 

Sometimes, Sherlock stared too. But it wasn’t like before when he cataloged and analyzed. Sometimes, he stared like he could hardly believe John was there, like he had finally surfaced from darkness and realized that he'd been missing something brilliant. In these times, John’s heart would beat a little faster, vacating his chest and jumping into his throat for a moment. Then Sherlock would blink and turn away to his experiment or the kettle would whistle and it would be over, leaving John unsure whether his eyes had really seen it or if he was just projecting.

John didn’t really want to tell Lestrade about how much he wanted for their casual friendship to return, while at the same time wishing it would just not. How he craved more. He didn’t want to say that, often, he would lean to peer over Sherlock’s shoulder or nearly brush the tips of their fingers as he passed a cup of tea, only to abort the move last second out of childish fear that the contact would reveal how much he cared. He wouldn’t even admit to himself that every time he yelled, he immediately wished he could exchange every heated word with a heated something else.

Unfortunately for him, Rosie saw all of this. And then some. Even if Sherlock wasn’t in the room, even if she had her headphones in and wasn’t paying any attention to their entire interaction, she knew. She would ascend the stairs and give both of them a _look_ and then hand Sherlock a tenner she had gotten from some tiny job she’d found in the paper. Sherlock would always sniff and ignore her money and Rosie would ask a question about his experiment, which was blown off every time, before turning to John and raising an eyebrow as if to ask what he was waiting for. John never knew. He always turned away.

So, when John’s phone lit up with Greg’s name just after lunch, he prepared himself for the onslaught of questions about how he was faring, about how weird it was to have his best friend back from the dead. What he didn’t expect was an invitation to a crime scene.

Sherlock had been out to Bart’s since that morning, off to experiment on some fingers or whatnot from Molly. John was sat on the couch, staring at Sherlock’s seat at the kitchen table, feeling almost panicked. A case? Right now? He couldn't be near Sherlock brilliant brain right now. It would just remind him how untouchable the man was. It would crush those maybe-emotions right out of Sherlock's eyes.

“Look, mate,” Lestrade said. “I haven’t actually told a soul he’s back and I would love to see my team’s faces when he swoops in. Besides, everyone’s stumped on this one. Real grisly, but the evidence on scene is ridiculously vague. Whaddya say?” 

John cleared his throat. “Um, I don’t know. And—well I'm not really sure about cases right now. I mean doing them. With him.”

Lestrade sighed. “Will you tell him at least?”

There was a tiny knock and John looked up to find Rosie at the door clad in shorts and t-shirt from bed, carrying a mug, with her head tilted as she watched him. John had an idea.

“What if I brought Rosie?” he asked.

“What, the girl you took in off the streets?” Lestrade asked. “The one who solved the sex slave case?”

“Yeah that’s the one,” John said as he looked at Rosie in askance. She gave him a short nod.

When Lestrade didn’t reply, John added, “I’ll still leave a note for Sherlock but he’ll meet us there if she can’t figure it out in time.”

“You think she’s as good as Sherlock?”

“I don’t know. Only one way to find out.”

Lestrade let out a long suffering sigh. “Fine, bring her along. I really wanted to see Anderson’s face when you and Sherlock strode in like you owned the place.”

John chuckled around his grimace. “Text us the address and we’ll be there soon.” Lestrade gave the affirmative and signed off.

John looked to Rosie, who was grinning in excitement. “Let’s get changed shall we?” 

~~~~

Rosie was dressed as nice as John had ever seen her, which, he supposed wasn’t all that difficult, considering he found her in rags. Her new blouse and jeans made her look her actual age, taking off five or more years from her appearance. She’d put on a little bit of makeup, a part of the shopping that had been done especially with Mrs. Hudson (like the long dress that had been covered in shiny white plastic and giggled and blushed over for _hours_ ) as John hadn’t known a thing about it. Over all, as she sat huddled in her newly laundered coat, her appearance was that of a young girl fresh out of university, innocent and hopeful for the future. Her only tell was her eyes, darting sharply from building to person to car to street, searching in her surroundings for threats and soaking in the new territory. 

“Where are you from?”

Rosie seemed caught off guard by the abrupt question. “Why do you ask?”

“Why are you so touchy about your past?” John shot back.

She smiled thinly. “It wasn’t exactly pleasant, and my life is a bit. . . precarious. Some very powerful people want my head, and they’ve got hands everywhere. I’m sure Sherlock told you his theories.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That you were involved in the drug business and turned.” 

“He isn’t wrong,” she said.

“But he’s missing some things,” John finished.

She nodded. “Details make a difference where my life is involved.”

“So basically, you’re dangerous and if you told me you’d have to kill me,” he said.

She laughed. “No, _I_ wouldn’t kill you. I really don’t like killing.” 

“Well, that’s comforting," he grumbled.

She seemed to relax into her seat. “I’m from Chicago, but I haven’t been there in a while. I’m probably not going to go back. There isn’t much left there.”

“What, no boy waiting patiently for your return?” he asked.

“No. Not there.” 

He watched as she turned pointedly to look out the window. “Somewhere else?”

She stared at the morning foot traffic with their coffee and briefcases for a few seconds. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“We’re here,” the cabbie said. 

Rosie slid out after John and together, they walked up to the tape guarded by a very grumpy Sally Donovan.

When she caught sight of them, Donovan frowned, not hostile like she would have been before, but genuinely confused. Even though John knew she had just been doing her job, and had even helped find the truth afterwards, he had blamed her for months after Sherlock’s fall. He still blamed her, to be honest, even knowing that Sherlock was alive, even knowing it had all been part of the plan. 

“Watson?” she asked, crossing her arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Lestrade asked us to come take a look,” he said.

“Us?” She looked at Rosie, who gave her a falsely pleasant smile.

John cleared his throat. “Yes, us.”

The radio at her shoulder barked static and Lestrade’s voice came over the line. “Bring ‘em up, Sally.” 

Donovan scowled. “Right away, sir.”

As Donovan led the way, Rosie slid her hand into her pocket and procured a pair of headphones. 

She caught his curious glance as she slid them into her ears and smiled. “Helps me concentrate. Blocks out all the unnecessary noise.”

John snorted. “Sherlock used to say we were thinking too loudly.”

She nodded seriously. “It can get distracting. Hence, music.”

John laughed loudly as he stepped into the crime scene but had to stop abruptly at the sight.

The obvious cause of death was the man's gaping throat, blood pooled on the ground around him and flecking the cabinets and walls of the home kitchen. His wrists and ankles were bound to the chair positioned in the center to the room, facing the doorway to the living area. The skin on his arms and face were burnt with little circles, the ends of cigarettes. Worst of all, though, his fingers and toes had been removed from his body and cast aside. 

"Obviously, he was tortured." Lestrade strode in, bypassing all greetings in favor of addressing the scene. He handed John and Rosie nitrile gloves and gestured to the body. "Name's Oliver Rincin. Has a wife and foster daughter who's just recently moved out. No one in the family has a criminal history aside from traffic tickets. We've got almost nothing to work with here."

As Lestrade briefed them, Rosie tilted her head and carefully approached the body, stepping around the puddles of blood and prodding the body gently. She parted the lips and smelled before frowning and moving her fingers to the buttons of his shirt. She popped each one open and untucked it, spreading it to reveal even more bruises and scratches across his body. With a hum she picked her other ear bud up and put in her ear, effectively blocking Lestrade out, and swiveled around, opening cabinets and closing them until she revealed one that was completely empty. She smiled and left it open, walking out of the room and singing silently with her music. 

Lestrade grunted and looked after her. "Boy, she was a right help. Donovan, will you follow her?" Sally nodded and followed Rosie's footsteps up the stairs.

John snorted. "No better than Sherlock ever was."

"No kidding," Lestrade said. "Speaking of himself, how have things been?" 

John shrugged and grimaced. "I'd love to say back to normal but. . ." 

"Aw, mate, you know it wasn't going to be like that," Lestrade replied. "He came back from the bloody dead, after three years. It's going to take some time to adjust back." 

"Who's come back from the dead?" 

John turned to the doorway to find Anderson, with his medical bags and decontamination suit on, and scowled. God, how he still hated that man.

"Lazarus, Anderson, you're a little late on the uptake," Lestrade lied. 

Just then, with Donovan at her heels, Rosie appeared with a smirk and a belt, which she handed to Lestrade. "It was the foster child." 

Everyone in the room stared at her while she simply grinned.

"I'll take it step by step then? Since you all seem so clueless," she began.

"You've found another one? Another bloody freak?"

Rosie's eye snapped to Anderson. "Excuse me?" 

"I thought the last one was gone." Anderson was looking between John and Lestrade angrily. "And now you've gone and found another."

John's blood boiled, his fists clenching shut as he glared daggers at Anderson. He didn't realize that he was moving toward the man until a hand snagged his collar and pulled him back. Next to him Rosie was being similarly restrained by Sally. 

"That's enough of that, kids," Lestrade growled. "Anderson, what the hell is your problem?" 

"I'm saying we just got rid the last freak, so why the hell is she replacing Holmes?" Anderson asked.

"Oh, I highly doubt that is going to happen."

And Sherlock Holmes swept right in between the standoff, completely ignoring them all in favor of taking his first survey of the scene. As he hummed in interest and leaned over to inspect the neat cuts to the fingers, Anderson watched on with a pale face, his lungs apparently incapable of pulling air. Donovan was slack jawed, her grip on Rosie completely gone. If John hadn't been so spectacularly angry, he would have laughed, instead he just wished Anderson would forget to breathe again. 

Rosie pushed Donovan's hands off of her, still eyeing Anderson with venom. "Speak of the devil." 

"Lestrade, take that belt from Rosie immediately. I've seen what she can do with a whip and while I've no love for Anderson, I do not wish to hear John whinging over the fact that she has gotten herself placed in jail." Sherlock took out his sliding magnifier and inspected the man's bared skin before turning his gaze to the group.

"It would hardly stop me," Rosie mumbled. Sherlock glanced at her, lips contorted as he hid a smile.

Anderson finally gasped, much to John's disappointment. "You- you're- you-"

Sherlock sighed. "Anderson it seems your intelligence has not just been abnormally abysmal since I've left but actually has gotten even worse. Soon cats will articulate better than you." 

"But you're supposed to be dead!" Anderson exclaimed.

"Perhaps I am and you simply are hallucinating this entire encounter."

Anderson paled even more, then turned green and dashed from the room.

"Oh, excellent Sherlock," Lestrade said. "Now he won't be able to come to the same crime scene as you for months!"

Sherlock sniffed. "You say that as if it's a bad thing." 

Sally broke her silence. "This is real?" Everyone looked at her.

Lestrade chuckled. "Yeah, Donovan. He's really here."

She blinked a few times and turned with wide eyes to Sherlock. "I'm sorry," she said. "For everything, I'm sorry."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "You were doing your duty, Sergeant." 

"Yeah, but I've had to live with the thought that doing my job, listening to that bastard, got you killed. I should have trusted you more." She looked at her feet a moment in regret before lifting her eyes and raising her hand. "Welcome back, freak." 

Sherlock's lips twitched up and he shook her outstretched hand. "At least someone here has common sense." He turned back to the scene with a clap. "Now, can we focus on this wonderful murder before us?" 

Sally cast a sidelong look at John. He had to admit that that was not what he was expecting from her, but he appreciated that she had learned. He nodded and gave her a small smile of gratitude which she returned quickly before stepping out of the room to return to her post at the tape.

John returned his attention to the scene and was suddenly struck by how familiar this was: Sherlock bending over a bloodied body with that intelligent spark lighting his eyes. Suddenly, John couldn’t contain his happiness. He was back on scene with _Sherlock_. They were investigating a _murder_ together. Why hadn’t he wanted this? 

Sherlock must have been able to sense his mood change because his eyes flicked up to look at John. Then a smirk was spreading across his lips and John just broke out in laughter. He could hear Sherlock's deep chuckles rumble along with him.

"Guys," Rosie said disapprovingly. "We're at a murder scene." 

That didn't help at all. Sherlock was doubled over while John guffawed even louder. In the background, Lestrade joined in quietly and Rosie looked on in mild confusion, but none of that compared to the mirth John saw on Sherlock's face. He moved over and placed his hand in the detective's hair, turning that lovely face toward him. 

"We're completely barmy," he giggled. "Totally mad. Aren't we?" 

"It's quite possible," Sherlock said. His eyes were bright with joy, but even more with relief and a slight wistfulness that John could feel in himself. They had both missed this, the camaraderie, the puzzle. Most of all, John had missed just being with him, without the barriers, without the awkward anger and terrifying want simmering beneath. As their giggles died down, Sherlock took a step closer to him and reached to touch John's hand in his hair. He threaded their fingers together and squeezed for a moment before pulling away and stepping back to look at Lestrade. 

John immediately missed the difference, the heat that was missing as soon as Sherlock turned, and had to blink away the shock of loss. What was worse, that feeling was familiar, like the ache of his shoulder in the winter, an old wound that hadn't quite healed. How had he not noticed he loved Sherlock before? _How had he not realized?_

In the midst of his mental breakdown, Sherlock and Lestrade were casually talking about the murder. 

"Obviously he was tortured before he was murdered Lestrade, I bet Anderson even figured that one out, but there are tell-tale signs that will lead to your murderer and the accomplice." 

"Yes, we already know who the murderer is, Sherlock, Rosie's told us," sniped Lestrade.

Sherlock tilted his gaze toward Rosie, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Rosie looked uncharacteristically nervous under Sherlock's assessing gaze. She raised the belt in her hand. "He was a drunk, you can see in the cabinet. It's very recently cleaned out, but there are still marks where the bottles rested, from where the alcohol seeped into the shelf. Chronic alcoholism often leads to domestic abuse, but not always. I would say that he beat his foster daughter in the same way she tortured him. She wanted to get revenge. There's a tiny residue of blood in the corner if this belt. She even used his materials, like the cigar cutter that has recently been cleaned and replaced in the living room."

Sherlock raised a brow, conceding the point. Rosie practically preened.

"You didn't account for _why_ she cut off his fingers, though," Sherlock continued, pacing into the sitting room, looking at the floor. "Or the fact that it was filmed."

Rosie snapped her head to Sherlock's feet, then sighed in exasperation. "How did I miss that?"

John blinked and looked at the carpet also. "Miss what?" 

Sherlock stooped down and pointed out three small circular depressions on the floor. "There was a stool or a kind of tripod here for some amount of time. Now, looking at the amount of blood that is already dried to a crust, I must say that they were torturing him for a few hours before they slit his throat. The impressions left in the carpet were more than likely there the same amount of time suggesting that—" 

"There was a camera filming the entire thing," Rosie finished, exasperated. "So they needed the film for incentive to get something—" 

"Money," Sherlock cut in. "They are planning to change their names and elope after they got the entirety of their funds from this man's wife, who helped or stood by during the childhood abuse, and who is currently at a conference out of town." He pointed to the calendar on the wall, which showed in pink, that someone was meant to be in Oxford for a military fundraising conference and benefit over the weekend.

"Wait," Lestrade said. "They? There were two?"

"The beatings were done by the step-daughter and she would have needed someone to be there with the camera, the boyfriend," Sherlock said. "The whole thing was his idea in the first place. He is probably the one who had the idea to cut off the fingers, too." 

"Brilliant," John breathed. Sherlock smiled and locked eyes with him for the barest of seconds. 

"We'll obviously need to be there for the dinner tonight," Sherlock said to Lestrade. "So that they don't kill the wife and get away with everything." 

Lestrade sighed. "I think we can take care of that—" 

"You can hardly solve the murder, let alone catch the perpetrators," Sherlock scoffed. "All three of us will need tickets then." 

"Three?" 

Rosie stared, confused, at Sherlock. The man had hardly given any inclination that Rosie had existed before this scene. John could see why she would assume that Sherlock wouldn’t want her along. 

Sherlock merely raised a brow. "Yes, three. You did help solve this, and seeing as last time, you saved John and I from certain death, you are moderately talented in capturing criminals. It's a good thing Mrs. Hudson made you buy that dress, it is a formal."

Rosie's face went a little red at the praise. John thought she a bit of a hero complex emerging with Sherlock. She looked at John. "I don't know, three's a party." 

Sherlock hummed and looked at his phone. "Yes, well, I'm sure you'll find yourself preoccupied quickly enough." 

"Yes, yes I will." Rosie suddenly smirked and winked at John. She swept out the door, leaving him to review the conversation and wonder if he'd missed something.

Sherlock followed her retreat with a mildly annoyed expression, like he had just stepped in a puddle that was deeper than he had expected. Then, he turned to John and his expression softened slightly, like it did at home, but just for a moment. He pursed his lips and looked down at his phone. "Shall we, John?" 

John began to reach out to snag his coat sleeve… and aborted the move. Again. He sighed. "Yeah, let's go."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty quick update! I had this one ready, but I've been making some tweaks to it to get our story moving along good and proper. Hoper_dreamer and I have made a joint decision that, with the addition of this chapter, the rating must be updated to Mature for dark themes and a lot of the things mentioned in the tags. Read on with caution, there are references to rape and abuse in this chapter.

Sherlock sat on his bed with his hands in his hair, reminiscent of where, just a few minutes ago, John's hand had hovered as he thought on the couch, planning the imminent capture of the murderous couple. It was amazing how John could scatter his thoughts so easily these days. It would be irritating if John were not essential.

Sherlock was painfully aware of the almost touches. They were different now than they had been before, he and John. But he had known that was going to happen, what with the whole betrayal thing and how Sherlock had changed since. How his _feelings_ had developed while he'd been gone. 

Before, John would touch him on accident, with abandon, and not regret it. It wasn't until he had left England that Sherlock realized he had begun to crave that touch. He kept trying to work and felt the absence of John's shoulder brushing his as they walked, or John's fingertips brushing his to pass his tea over, or his hands ruffling through his messy curls after hours of deep thought. Sherlock practically _heard_ John telling him to put proper clothes on or run a comb through his hair or 'eat, god-damn it, Sherlock'. Sherlock always talked back to him when he wasn't there. 

Now that John was back, was settling into Baker Street, Sherlock didn't know what to do with those words spoken into the void while abroad. Sherlock had said things he thought he'd be able to say to John in person, then, to the point that it had become natural coming off his lips. Now, those words were not welcome. John couldn’t even touch him now. He would yell at him for things that had been okay before, like beakers on the table, or a misplaced scowl. Showing affection was out. He and John had probably downgraded to acquaintances after what Sherlock did to him. 

No, that wasn't quite right. John stared. A lot. On more than one occasion, Sherlock had looked up from an experiment that had been distracting him from his own preoccupation with John, only to find John quickly looking away, face slightly pink. Once, he'd found John staring at his coat beside the door with a slightly panicked look on his face. 

Another thing, John didn't smile at him anymore. Well, to be fair, he thought, John didn’t seem to smile at much, like he was out of practice. Sherlock could hardly imagine a John Watson that did not smile ever, that was always sad or angry, like he had been before he met Sherlock. Sherlock hated that he'd been the one to put that look on John Watson's face, he was the one meant to be curing it. 

It would seem that he'd been replaced on that front.

The only person that could reliably put a smile on John's face these days, much to Sherlock's displeasure, was Rosie. She'd appear from the basement flat at least once a day, asking after his experiments, and paying him ridiculous money and being generally annoying before turning to John and managing to make him really laugh for the first time in hours. The only thing Sherlock got when he attempted this was a weak smile and occasionally a short snort that lacked all the proper amusement. 

At least 77% of Sherlock's days was dedicated to solving the problem that John Watson posed. Why had John come back at all if he did not wish to regain his friendship? That night Rosie had saved them from Renner, John had finally listened to him. Sherlock honestly hadn't expected John to want to come near him at all, and with one near death experience, John was moving back into Baker Street on one condition: Rosie comes with him, and Sherlock helps. Sherlock hated it, but, those were hardly difficult terms, and he'd do anything for John.

When Sherlock had come home that day to find a note saying that John was out with Rosie, the surge of hate was not entirely expected. Why was John going to a crime scene with _her_? Why hadn't he waited for him? Why was she better? Why couldn’t Sherlock just get him back? 

The anger, _jealousy_ his mind helpfully corrected, had simmered just below the surface the entire time he stood at the scene. He'd felt satisfaction in driving off Anderson, more so than usual. The unfortunate business was that this girl was smart, far cleverer than everyone else in that room, even if she had been missing half of the murderous duo. If Sherlock could train her a little more, she might even be as good as he was, and wouldn't it be nice to have another proper genius to talk to? The girl seemed willing enough to learn from him, if her reaction at the scene had been anything to go by. She had quite the hero complex with him. 

But that was the boring part of the whole endeavor. The best part had been John.

John, touching him. John, smiling at him, laughing with him, staring at him, calling him brilliant again. Oh, Sherlock needed it. 

And then Rosie had made that comment and reality had spun down upon them and John's affection had suddenly turned off. And now, after his latest aborted movement, Sherlock had retreated to his bedroom to sulk and everything was simply wretched.

Sherlock had no idea what to do in this situation, what to do with this _sentiment_. What was he meant to say when John was angry? What was he meant to do when John would never touch him, despite the fact that he stared and stared? How was he supposed to act when he craved John's touch so much it was almost more painful than going through withdrawal? He didn't know. He had no answers. Before John, he barely knew that he had a heart, and now there was no way to go back. 

He was at an impasse. He needed help. There was only one person besides John who he could trust with matters of the heart.

He rolled off his bed and made his way down to visit Mrs. Hudson. 

Mrs. Hudson tutted over him as soon as he entered her flat and went about making tea. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for the formal? You only have an hour before you need to leave!" 

"It hardly takes an hour to put a different suit on Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock said. "There are far more important things that I must be thinking on." 

"Oh, are you still worried about your John, dear?" She sighed. "Don't you worry about that. He'll come around soon. Probably, sooner than you think." She winked at him as she handed him his cup.

Sometimes, Sherlock wondered if she was a higher being. "How do you know?" 

She laughed and sat down across the table from him. "The only two people who do not realize the tension between you two is you two. Mind you, it's been like that for years. I think it's just coming to a head now. Rosie and I have had some excellent conversations about this." 

Sherlock scowled. "You've talked about us with her?" 

"She always brings it up first, dear," she said. "She's been a supporter of you two from the start. Been agreeing with me since the first day we chatted." 

"And what have you talked about?" Sherlock asked.

"Oh, a lot of things." She patted his hand. "Don't you worry about her. She's a good girl, even if she's had a rough go of it. No proper parents or siblings. And oh, is she lovesick!"

Sherlock was a little taken aback by this. "How do you know that?"

Mrs. Hudson sighed. "There are things you just recognize in a person Sherlock. She's a lot like you, love, in that she's got a lot of heart, but no one would ever know it." 

Sherlock shook his head, wondering how she could possibly have come to that conclusion. Mrs. Hudson was far more brilliant than Sherlock gave her credit for; she'd known that Sherlock had a heart when everyone else, himself included, had decided he was a psychopath. He decided now was the time to bring up the center of the dilemma. "Mrs. Hudson." 

"Yes, dear," she leaned forward and stared him straight in the eye. 

"What do I do?" he asked. 

She pursed he lips. "That depends on what you want." 

"I—" He had to swallow around the lump forming in his throat. Emotions, he decided, were far more difficult a puzzle than anything he had ever solved. They were a constant battle, wearing him thin and beating him down, which is why he hadn't bothered with them in the first place. They were messy and uncontrollable once you let them have even the slightest leeway. He had no experience with this, expressing things, but there was one thing that he was completely certain of. 

"I want him." 

Mrs. Hudson beamed. "Oh, lovely! It's always nice to be proven right every once in a while." 

Sherlock grimaced. "So what am I meant to do with this? If he rejects me…" He didn't even want to think of the outcome.

"Well," she sighed. "What's worse? Living with wanting him every day when you could have everything, or risking it to have the whole package?" 

Sherlock swallowed. Live with John as just friends, or possibly have more? He wasn't sure anymore if John would reject him. Before the Fall, he had known outright that John was not interested. Even if his repressed libido said otherwise (Thou dost protest too much, John), his doctor had never wanted to be associated with him like that. Now, looking back, the burning looks, fraught with anger and repressed longing shared after cases, did not seem to be just on his side of the equation. But, did the benefits outweigh the risk?

"I think you'll be surprised by him, dear," Mrs. Hudson said. "Just talk to him. Tell him how you feel. Everything will turn out how it's meant to be." 

He nodded, still unsure of himself, but at least better than he had been. 

"Mrs. Hudson?" 

In the doorway, Rosie stood in a pale blue slip, face covered in makeup and looking rather uncomfortable with the whole ensemble. Her hair was pulled up elegantly to frame her eyes and sharp features. Sherlock frowned. Something about her look was vaguely familiar, setting a tiny pit of unease in his stomach. 

Mrs. Hudson had no such qualms. "Do you need some help with the dress dear?" 

Rosie smiled. "If you would be so kind." 

"Of course." Mrs. Hudson got up and patted Sherlock on the shoulder. "I think you know what to do, love. Just be yourself." 

Sherlock nodded, eyes still on Rosie. She smiled softly at him and pulled her slip up a little higher, a move that would be considered self-conscious on a normal girl. Curious, Sherlock got up and followed Mrs. Hudson out of the flat. As Rosie turned her back, Sherlock caught a glimpse of a scar, recent, perhaps a few years, peeking out just below her shoulder blade. From this distance, he couldn't tell what kind of wound it had been, but it must have been deep from the white-pink of puckered skin. Then, she disappeared.

From upstairs, John called out. "Sherlock, we have twenty minutes, I hope you're dressed for this." 

Sherlock's stomach dropped, but he quickly pushed it back. No. No fear. Just John. 

And he went to prepare for the emotional onslaught of the evening.

~~~

Rosie hadn’t been ready when the cab arrived and Mrs. Hudson insisted that they just go in separate cars; Rosie would call Lestrade to pick her up. Now, Sherlock was stuck in a cab with an ungodly attractive John Watson in dress uniform.

It made sense that he wore it, retired army going to a supposedly military fundraiser after all, but the second he had come down the stairs adjusting his beret to sit perfectly, Sherlock had been able to do nothing but pace his breathing and make approving sounds. He was slightly amazed that John hadn’t noticed how his cheeks flushed and he averted his eyes whenever he tried to look at him. 

John's military bearing was a perfect mix between rigid and neutral. He didn't show any of his nervousness or discomfort at being alone with Sherlock, even though Sherlock knew it was there in the angle of his shoulders, the lack of eye contact. He was a perfect line of command and subtle threat. 

Sherlock squirmed as he stared at the reflection in the window. He'd never seen John in uniform, and it was distracting to the point that he could barely think. He was going insane. That was the only viable conclusion. The last fifty minutes of silence had been torture. Thankfully, they were very close to their destination, so he would have a buffer of sorts to filter the tension.

Sherlock watched as John's fingers clenched into a fist and relaxed and clenched again. He would say something soon. Probably ask about the woman they were supposed to be saving. Sherlock hadn't thought about her or the suspects for hours now.

"Sherlock," John started. Sherlock could barely turn his head to make eye contact.

"Are you okay?" 

John's eyes were creased with worry and nervousness. His eyes flicked down Sherlock's body briefly, cheeks coloring, before they locked with Sherlock's. Interested? He could never tell.

He looked away and made another affirmative noise. 

"Sherlock, you haven’t said a word since we left." 

He swallowed slowly and cleared his throat. "I'm fine, John." 

"Are you sure?" he asked. 

"Yes, John." He added a touch of impatience to his tone. Maybe John wouldn't pry. Now was not the time to talk about it.

"It just that we would have gone through some form of plan, usually," he continued. 

He sighed. "Usually?"

John's face suddenly turned stony. He looked away out the window toward the brightly lit hall that was their destination. "Sorry. We used to do that. Not anymore, then." 

Excellent, Sherlock. You've gone and messed it up before it began.

"John, wait." He tried to reach out as John climbed out of the car, tried to fix it, but John just kept going.

"It's okay, Sherlock," he said. "I get it." 

"No—" but John was stepping away, gone. 

Sherlock growled and punched the seat. He'd never be good enough for John. Never. He didn’t think before he spoke, didn’t even consider John's feelings. 

He paid and followed John despairingly up the flight of steps, trying and failing to not notice John's impeccable posture, his almost perfectly hidden anger. Sherlock could still see it, could notice any form of negative emotion from irritation to blinding anger when it came to John because he'd had it all directed at him at one point or another. 

They were early, but John went right in and began talking to whoever wasn't Sherlock, collecting information and identifying the woman in charge, the target they were supposed to be protecting, while Sherlock sat at their assigned table and watched him from afar. It wasn't long before Lestrade and Rosie showed up.

They weren't the only pair to show up with drastically different ages, but they were definitely the most picturesque. Lestrade in a formal back tuxedo and Rosie in a very elegant and modern sleeveless dress of royal satin that came up to her neck in a silver rhinestone collar. She seemed the most striking of all the women in the ballroom, her bright eyes matching the dress exactly as she assessed each of the people she passed. She was most definitely not the child that Sherlock caught glimpses of earlier. 

He blinked and sat back. When had he begun to think of her as something young and helpless, a thing to be protected? Had it happened subconsciously? Was John rubbing off on him, or was Rosie intentionally making him think this way with her superb acting skills? Whatever reason the attachment had come along, these conclusions were getting rather ridiculous for the tiny amount of information he had on her. 

As she and Lestrade approached, Rosie gave him a soft smile.

"You guys identify the suspects yet?" Lestrade asked quietly, holding out a chair for Rosie to slip into.

Sherlock sighed. Of course he had. "Back left corner, woman in slightly too revealing dress and her date with the matching tie. I'm surprised you didn't pick them out immediately considering you actually know their faces, Lestrade." 

The DI grinned. "Yeah, but it's good to know you're still as brilliant as you used to be." 

"Nothing's changed, Lestrade," he replied. Out of the corner of his eye, which was still trained on his fantastically dressed army doctor, he spied John picking his way over.

Lestrade chuckled. "Yeah, sure." 

John stepped up behind Rosie and put a hand on her shoulder. She immediately tensed, eyes dilating in fear and hands clenching in fists. Her nose flared and she inhaled slowly before visibly relaxing. 

Interesting. Assaulted, physically he already knew, but sexually was also a possibility. She must associate scents highly with memories. She has identified John's scents and grouped them with safety. Possibly the reason she liked to come upstairs and sit in their flat, even when she never spoke a word. 

"You look wonderful, love," John said, smiling as he rubbed her shoulder. 

She smiled back up at him. "I'd feel wonderful if we get these murderers." 

" _Murderers?_ What are we talking about murderers for? We're at a fundraiser!"

A woman and her husband, who must be the third couple for their table, stopped in front of them. The woman practically shrieked her words, though a smile had plastered itself delicately on her face. She clung to her high-ranking military husband with a small manicured hand, but her eyes clearly wandered over John's perfect stature, sizing him up. 

Sherlock scowled, jealousy purring deep in his chest again as John returned her gaze. Humph, Three Continents Watson indeed. 

The woman slid into the chair immediately next to Sherlock, still carefully looking over John. She might have introduced herself, but all Sherlock could notice was her overbearing perfume and the tuft of hair that she had missed hanging loosely down her backless dress.

"That is actually his seat," Sherlock practically growled, nodding toward John. 

Finally, the woman tore her eyes from John's figure only to lewdly look him up and down. He suppressed the urge to vomit. 

Her smile was slightly predatory. "I hadn’t realized that you two had come together, please excuse me." She moved over a seat.

"We aren't together," John blurted out, then immediately paled. 

Sherlock looked down, feeling as if he'd been punched in the stomach, his plans for the evening unraveling more as the minutes ticked by. He should have known that he didn’t have a chance with John, he never had. 

Two seats away, Rosie had donned a face that he'd seen often on John or Molly Hooper, usually prefacing 'Oh my God I cannot believe you just said that' or a shake of the head. Next to her, Lestrade looked like he had resignedly accepted the fate of tonight and was settling in for a ride. 

John sighed and stiffly made his way around the table to drop into the vacated seat. Sherlock couldn’t help but subtly lean away from him and avert his eyes, keeping his silence as everyone began to chat around him. He could barely think anymore. Why did it matter that he was here? There really wasn’t much to do. He could always just leave, pick up and go back to Baker Street, Rosie and Lestrade together were more than capable of catching the suspects and lugging them back to the Yard. John could take any catch he wanted and go back to their place and have sex or whatever it is that he wanted that he could never get from Sherlock and they would get married and have 2.4 children with a white picket fence and a calm, quiet retirement. And Sherlock would be left like he always was, solving crimes and trying not to shoot up. God, he thought he'd been doing well. His left arm itched for the needle that he'd thrown away for good not six months ago.

He sighed. Apparently everyone else had been going through the motions of eating. Rosie had given Sherlock's lack of appetite an excuse that he could not remember because he didn’t care and music had begun in the background. Many people were rising and moving to the open area in the center. Dancing apparently.

For the first time since everyone had sat down, Sherlock turned his head, looking toward the husband with a small smile. He held his hand out to the woman, across John's chest, and spoke, "May I?" 

The man nodded with a small smile, "If you insist."

As they stood together, Sherlock caught sight of Rosie's suppressed smile and raised eyebrow. John seemed slightly affronted, staring openly as he and the woman made their way to the floor and began a waltz. 

She was decidedly not the most wretched partner he'd had for a waltz, but certainly not good. She stepped on his toes a total of five times, though Sherlock hardly noticed. He was staring ahead as he'd been taught and occasionally catching glimpses of the table. At one point he was sure that he'd seen both Rosie and Lestrade smiling at each other while John spoke with the other man, eyes flicking every few seconds to them on the dance floor. The next turn, Rosie and Lestrade had departed and he caught a glimpse of them dancing their way across the floor. 

Before long, too soon in Sherlock's opinion, the song ended and he stepped back to bow to his partner and place a kiss on her hand. 

She giggled. "You dance excellently. I'd love to have another."

Sherlock smiled, turning his eyes softer and deploying his best flirtation techniques. "Of course." 

She smiled, and Sherlock noticed that her lipstick was just a shade off from matching correctly. "How about after a few more songs. Can't have everyone suspicious, now can we?" 

She winked at him and reached a little higher to place her off-colored lips to his jaw. He heard it when they parted from his skin with a slightly wet sound, leaving her marks on his pale complexion. His stomach churned uncomfortably, but he smiled back as she stared for a moment. 

Suddenly, a hand clamped down on his shoulder and John was beside him. 

"You mind if I steal him away for a moment?" John was smiling, but it was more of a baring of teeth. "I hate to break up this excellent connection." 

The woman appeared embarrassed. "Of course." 

John practically dragged him across the dance floor. It was in the same direction that Lestrade and Rosie had gone. Perhaps something was going wrong and they needed help? Whatever it was had John more agitated than he'd seen all night.

He dragged Sherlock down a large hallway, not looking at anything or stopping until they came across a bathroom. John dragged him into it, looking around for other people. There was no one. He roughly shut the door and locked it before whirling around to face Sherlock, glaring and stalking towards him.

Sherlock retreated. "John? What's wr—"

"Never. Again." John shoved him against the wall and gripped his hair, pulling his face down to look into his eyes. 

"Wha—"

Sherlock barely had the time to register what was happening before John's lips pushed roughly against his. He was so shocked, his mouth popped open and a little 'oh' escaped his lips as his eyes spread wide. 

Before he knew it though, John had pulled away and was growling into his ear. "I will never say those words again. And you will _never_ let anyone touch you like that again." 

His hand came up and wiped at the lipstick smudged into Sherlock's skin, before quickly replacing it with lips and teeth. Sherlock could do nothing except exhale and slide slowly down the wall, giving John better access.

"John," he breathed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left." 

John stopped and leaned back a moment to look at him. His beret had moved out of proper alignment and Sherlock was torn between fixing it and tearing the thing from his head. 

He felt John's hand skate across his cheek and he turned his face away, whispering, "I never wanted to hurt you. It seems that you are better off without me anyway."

"No." John's response was so immediate that Sherlock had to look. 

He was shaking his head, eyes pained. "No. I will never be better without you, Sherlock. You had to leave, I know, and it will take time for me to stop being angry. But never think that I was okay when you were gone, because I wasn't." 

Sherlock's heart was pounding in his chest. "I wasn't alright when you were gone either." 

John's eyes searched his for a moment, questioning, as his hand slid down to settle in the crook of his left elbow. Sherlock looked away, ashamed of his previous weakness, nauseous at the prospect of what John would say when he found that it was not just the cocaine. 

The hand in Sherlock's hair clenched and maneuvered his forehead to John's, forcing Sherlock to watch. 

"I know," John whispered. "I know." 

And he kissed him, softly, slowly, full of pain and years of regret. This time Sherlock kissed back, all of his want and pining melted down into one press of lips to another. For a moment there was nothing in the world but them and their breaths mingling as they took sips of each other, afraid to start anything more on this fragile beginning but wanting it oh, so much.

Suddenly, a scream echoed from outside. Sherlock reflexively clenched onto John's shoulder, the sharp metal from John's decorations pressing into his hand. John gave him a worried look before glancing at the door.

"Rosie," he said. Sherlock nodded and they moved in unison to unlock the door and run down the hall.

When they appeared at the door that continued to emit the horrible screeches, they found a scene that was more than under control. The target was tied to a chair in the center if the room, quietly crying as she watched the frozen television with the image of her husband bloodied and bruised on it. Lestrade was cuffing the man that Sherlock had pointed out earlier. 

The screams, however, were being emitted from the step-daughter, who was in a locked position, arms held behind her back and legs twined down by Rosie's own. Rosie herself had her head laying on the ground with the most annoyed expression in the world, unable to put her hand over the girl's mouth without giving some leeway on her arms and possibly setting her free. 

Her head lolled around at the sound of their footsteps. "Oh, thank God. Will you come and shut her up? I would have gotten my knife out but this damned skirt doesn't exactly lend to easy access." 

Lestrade tossed John a pair of hand cuffs, which he quickly put to use, hauling the woman, kicking and screaming, away from Rosie and locking her hands behind her back. She continued to screech, much to everyone's annoyance, until Rosie managed to hike up her skirt properly and pull a knife from a sheath strapped to her thigh. She put the blade to the girl's throat and whispered, "I swear I'll do it if you keep it up."

She kept her lips firmly shut after that.

Rosie sighed in relief and shook her head. "That was so tedious. Take me home Lestrade." She looked at John and Sherlock, taking in the no doubt obvious details of their encounter. "Either get me there extremely before or extremely after, I really don't want to hear what goes on upstairs."

Lestrade laughed and clapped a hand to Sherlock's shoulder. "It's about time. It'll be on the late side, I think. Why don't you two catch a cab and head home?" he said to Sherlock. "I'll get her back safe and sound, unsullied and such." 

Rosie snorted. "I'd like to see someone try to 'sully' me." 

"I would, too," Lestrade chuckled. 

Sherlock looked to John who moved toward him and took his hand. Sherlock had never known how much he would enjoy John's hand in his until that night years ago when they had fled, cuffed together and forced to twine their fingers in order to run. Now, Sherlock would revel in the soft heat of John's hands, safe.

"Before the police arrive?" he asked.

John smiled. "As always." 

Sherlock returned the grin. "As always."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Rosie thanked her lucky stars that the sexual tension was finally over. It was pretty horrible at dinner, and honestly it had been the worst part of her night seeing those two getting jealous and fighting over things that they should have sorted out _ages_ ago. Well, it had been the worst part of her night, right up until the moments before she and Lestrade and gotten up to catch their suspects in the act. Rosie had seen the couple that she had studied in the cruiser with Lestrade walk out of the ballroom. She was about to alert the DI that their targets had begun moving when she felt a presence behind her. The heat of a hand ghosted over her shoulder and she felt humid, disgusting breath tickle her ear, causing her to shudder and sit rigid in her seat.

"I've missed you," the voice whispered. "It took far too long to find out where you were. Hope we can catch up." 

She had had to force her breathing to be even as he left. Lestrade hadn't suspected anything when she alerted him to the target's movement and John and Sherlock had been far too preoccupied with each other to notice her jumpy tension. Hours later, when everything had been sorted by the locals and a correct prisoner transfer had been filled out, Lestrade had taken her back to Baker. He'd only asked once, when she was getting out of the car.

"Are you okay?" 

She'd looked at him with a smile, hoping it looked more weary than afraid. "Yeah, I just need some sleep." 

He'd looked a little worried, like he knew something was wrong but was reluctant to pry. "Alright. I appreciate the help tonight. I'll see you around. Make sure the boys don't get lost in each other's eyes." 

She had chuckled, and it sounded a bit nervous, even to her ears. "Will do. Thanks, detective." 

He'd waited until she was inside before leaving and she'd gone to work.

Now, she was changed into her old jeans and ratty hoodie, coat draped over her shoulders and backpack slung across her back. She'd stayed too long in London and now her worst nightmare was on her. It had been dangerous to assume that Sherlock had killed him while abroad, and now she was going to pay for it. There was no getting out of the country with him on the prowl. It was attack or nothing, something the man had taught her himself. 

She shivered again at the thought of his hands and lips so close to her bare skin. His breath still reeked of tobacco and it made her stomach roil. She forced herself to clench down on the fear. She was better than him, she'd been told hundreds of times that she'd surpassed his swiftness and wit. She could do this, she could. 

Inside herself, she pulled out the predator, the one she'd pushed down and hid so carefully since she had met John. The simmering anger sharpened her senses and calmed her fear, focusing her mind to the task before her.

Do or die.

Kill or be killed.

The house he'd been tracking her from was two down from the house she was scaling at the moment. He likely had access to some CCTV but not much, only brief seconds at a time. The Ice Man had a really tight hold over his territory. It was possible that they had already been alerted to any security breaches. Regardless, she'd completely avoided any and all cameras. She couldn't take chances.

He was in the second floor of an abandoned building, but there was a nice sky light that led into the third floor. All she had to do was get to it, which was hardly a problem. The houses in London were so conveniently close together, not like in America where they had at least 10 feet minimum between. She easily leapt from roof to roof and crouched down in front of the glass window. As quietly as possible, she covered it completely in duct tape, an essential to her supplies. Once done, she hit it with the handle of her knife and heard a soft crunch. Wiggling the tape to make sure that the glass was shattered to the edge, she softly peeled the pane of glass back, not one of the shards falling to the ground below. Then, she covered her hands in a tatty shirt to protect from loose shards and lowered herself down. She dropped the last two feet and landed silently. 

She surveyed the floor and identified which of the old boards would be the least squeaky and stepped carefully on them to the window on her left. Thankfully, it opened rather quietly, no doubt he had greased it so as not to alert the occupied houses on either side to his presence. The window below her was open just slightly and she identified the muzzle of a sniper rifle pointing steady at 100˚ NNW. She followed the line of sight and caught sight of the second floor of 221B Baker Street, a clear shot through either of the two windows where Sherlock and John so loved to sit. They had probably gotten home and to bed before he'd set up. By morning, one or both of them would have been dead. But that wasn’t going to happen any more than she was going to see the multitude of stars when sitting in London light pollution.

The muzzle shifted slightly and then angled up. He was tired of waiting then, taking a break, no, opening the window a little more. It was stuffy. 

She smiled. Excellent. No need to use the stairs. He'd expect that, knew the skylight was there. 

She sat backwards on the ledge of the open window, thank God there weren’t screens to take out. Again, England was so nice. Silently, she lowered her upper body down, back to brick and left her knees clinging to the window ledge. She still had a foot or so before her fingertips could reach the window below her, so, as quietly as possible she hooked her fet to the corners of the window to stabilize herself, and slid down the wall. Finally, she had about two inches of her fingers touching the top. She took a deep breath and let her feet drop.

As her feet departed from the third floor, there was small scraping sound and the muzzle of the gun moved again, but it was too late. Rosie had a grip on the top of the window and she flipped into the second floor feet to chest with her prey. 

She landed, crouching, with legs on either side of him as he attempted to catch his breath and get over his shock. She didn't let him. Before he could so much as twitch in aggression, her second best knife was pressed to his jugular and he ceased moving.

He swallowed and a thin line of blood pooled on either side of the double edged blade. 

"I never taught you that, miss Marie," he said. 

"Survival skills. I've done it several dozen times now," she whispered. His breath reeked. There was a little bit of bleach wafting in from somewhere in the room. She trembled.

"Did you miss me?" He smiled, but it was not pleasant, it never had been pleasant. It was like a shark and a wolf together. 

She didn't respond. If she opened her mouth, she would throw up.

"No?" he asked softly. "Didn't miss uncle Sebby. I made you feel so good last time I saw you." 

She swallowed down the bile, tapping into her anger, remembering Ian's anger. "I'm going to kill you." 

He laughed softly. "If you were going to do that you'd have done it by now, sweetheart." 

She looked into his dead, cold eyes. Then she turned the blade and sliced open his throat. He gasped for air and scrambled as the wound gushed blood from the carotid. It pooled quickly around him as she watched, wiping the spatters from her face and tasting iron on her lips.

"You always underestimated me Moran." 

He moaned loudly and, suddenly, she heard several pairs of footsteps rushing in. She looked to the window, but knew that an attempt to jump from two stories would no doubt break her ankle. She tried to make a break the stairs, but by then, it was too late. Five men she'd never seen before rushed in and began to subdue her. They were all petty thieves, thugs that Moran had picked up here in England judging by their thick accents.

She struggled for a few minutes, managing to land a few good hits, but it was over when one of them picked up a bucket and threw it at her. Her skin began to burn mildly and the cloying, thick smell of bleach filled her sinuses. She immediately wretched, doubling in on herself. One of the men shoved her to the ground and held her shoulders down with one arm, the other hand pressing against her hips at the belt. A fission of fear ran through her. 

"C'mon, we ain't got time," one of the other men called. "Moran gave us our orders and told us to follow through even if she killed 'im. To the old butchery we go." 

Rosie gasped as two of the men hauled her up. Bleach devoured her, the man on her left spat his chew on her and she wretched again. Tears fell from her face and she wished she had some kind of backup this time, someone who knew she'd gone looking for trouble. There was no one.

She trembled as they hauled her down the stairs, but she didn't see them at all anymore. All she could see was Moran's grinning face. All she could feel was a searing burn on her back, marking her as the property of the one man she hated even more than Uncle Seb.

_"You told me!" she screamed. "You told me never, ever put my name on my work!"_

_The laugh he gave was dark and familiar. "Ah, but you aren't my work, pet. You. Are._ Mine. _"_

_The iron pressed into her shoulder again in the same spot, melting the skin and searing his initials into the muscle._

She screamed. The men stuffed a gag into her mouth and threw her in the trunk, leaving the neighborhood in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know its a bit confusing. Rosie's story comes next chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

John didn't wake up how he had wanted. Originally, he had planned to open his eyes around mid morning, turn over and run his hands through Sherlock's sleep mussed curls and kiss his consulting detective awake. They had a lot of lot time to make up for, and John was more than ready to start chipping away at it.

In reality, however, John was woken by a shrill ringing followed immediately by the entire body weight of his consulting detective thrown over him in attempt to reach his phone.

As Sherlock snapped a sharp 'What?' into his phone, John opened his eyes and realized that the brightness in the room was not the sun, as he had previously thought, but the lamp they had left on. Outside the window, the rosy predawn sun barely lit up the sky. He groaned.

"I cannot possibly tolerate this at this time of day, Lestrade, now piss off." Sherlock signed off on the phone and threw it across the room for good measure. He slumped down, pressing his face to John's bare chest and sighing deeply.

John ran his hands through the fluffy curls. Sherlock leaned into it before moving up to meet John's mouth in a lingering kiss. At least he'd gotten one thing off his check list, now if he could just move on to some of the more sensual things—

Sherlock's phone started up again in the corner. 

"Ignore it." Sherlock's voice rumbled against his lips. "Lestrade is trying to give me a case when he should know better." 

As much as John wanted to forget about it, Sherlock was right about something. Lestrade really did know better than to call, he'd even said last night he had no desire to bother them. 

Sherlock's phone stopped ringing. John's lit up immediately after.

"Sherlock, I think it's serious," he said, attempting to pull back from Sherlock's searching tongue.

"It couldn't possibly be, John," he replied.

The mobile rang _again_. 

"It is." John pulled away and answered the call. "Hello?"

"Bloody, hell, finally!" Lestrade sounded exasperated. "Sherlock didn’t even give me a chance to tell you why I'm calling. God knows that if I had a choice I wouldn’t."

"What is it?" John asked as he watched Sherlock roll over and feign a sulk.

"Well, it might just be a coincidence, but," he paused.

Sherlock groaned and reached up to John's shoulder, attempting to steal the phone. Things quickly devolved into a wrestling match that ended with the phone in John's hand as he held Sherlock off with his foot while the man tried to stretch his hands out far enough to rip John's arm away from his ear. 

"Spit it out, before Sherlock gets thrown to the ground," John grunted.

The DI chuckled nervously. "Well, I was about to get to bed when another team called. Said they got a call from a couple who heard a break in across the street and saw a car drive away. I was about to say I didn't care, what's a bloody break in got to do with me anyway? Well, he said they found a man dead, throat slit in this abandoned flat with a sniper rifle on the floor. Their ballistics guy took a look. Guess whose windows they could see perfectly into?"

John laid his head back. "Ours?" Sherlock quit fighting. 

"Yeah," Lestrade ground out. "So, as much as I hate it, you two need to come out here and take a look, 'cause I know this isn’t the Met's division."

John sighed and swiped his palm over his face. "Right, we'll be out there. Send us the address yeah?"

"'Course, mate. See you soon." He hung up.

John laid the phone down and looked at Sherlock. "Seems someone's trying to kill us."

"Hardly new, John," Sherlock replied.

He snorted. "True, but this one's a dead sniper, just a few blocks from here."

Sherlock's head tilted with intrigue. "I suppose we must venture out , then."

They looked into each other's eyes for a moment.

"Shower first?" John asked.

Sherlock slid out of bed, letting the sheets fall languorously from his body. "Together would be faster."

John grinned. "Oh, you brilliant bastard." 

~~~

By the time they got there, Lestrade was pacing in front of the flat's door.

"Bloody took you long enough. It's been nearly an hour."

Sherlock and John looked at each other and collectively decided not to comment. Lestrade led them into the scene. 

There was a gun on the floor, looking as if had been pulled in quickly from the sill and dropped just to the left of the body of the broad shouldered sniper. John went to the window and looked out, confirming what Lestrade told them about the trajectory of the shot. 

"It's perfect," he said aloud to Sherlock. "Straight shot into the sitting area. I could do it myself if you gave me the sight."

When he turned around, he found Sherlock crouched on the ground, craning his head up to the ceiling. 

"Assailant was crouching over him when he was killed. It blocked the arterial spray to the ceiling. They would have been covered in blood when they left. It doesn’t appear that they were large, so it was either a woman or a small man." He got up and nudged by John to stick half of his body out of the window, looking up the wall, and coming immediately back in. "They are particularly agile to have swung through this window from the upstairs. Window is open and there are some scuff marks on the sill. I'm sure you will find that the skylight is broken."

He went back to the body and observed the gaping throat. "Did you identify the body?"

Lestrade nodded. "We ran it through all the records as soon as we had pictures. Photo matched that of an American soldier, dishonorably discharged twelve years ago from the Special Forces and pronounced dead by some British specialists in the Arabian peninsula shortly after. The name is Sebastian Moran."

"Interesting." Sherlock pulled some gloves out of his pockets and wiped away some of the blood around the wound. 

"What's interesting?" John asked, stepping up behind him.

"The attacker knew him," Sherlock said. "The two spoke before death. The knife they used is a particularly sharp double edged blade, it cut into the neck when Moran spoke as they held him here. It is possible they wanted information before they killed him, but the wound is particularly deep for just a hit, so there was some amount of emotion to it."

"So what you're telling me, is that we are looking for an enemy of a dead man who has no family and technically hasn’t existed in years," Lestrade said. "And that doesn't say anything about why had his gun pointed at your heads." 

Sherlock hummed. "You haven’t mentioned anything about the struggle that happened after this man's death." He pointed at the floor, smudged with bloody footprints. "You can run the prints on the shoes for a smaller pool, but there were at least six men that came through after Moran was dead and took the attacker with them. They poured some bleach on the killer, probably more for a mild torture. And look, here, Lestrade, there is spit from chewing tobacco on the floor. Did your specialists miss that? It's a wonder you ever solve crimes without me. Find that man and you will know who killed Moran." 

Lestrade rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we did manage to find that, thanks. We're running it as we speak."

John shook his head. "But, Sherlock, none of this explains why he had his sights pointed at our heads." 

Sherlock looked at him then, and John could see the slight tinge of fear in the tension around his eyes. "I have two ideas, neither of which are particularly pleasant. I need to make a call, but first." He turned to Lestrade. "You did bring Rosie back safely to Baker Street last night did you not?" 

John's anxiety spiked when Rosie's name was mentioned. 

Lestrade nodded. "I watched her walk into the front door."

"Did she act differently than normal?" Sherlock asked.

John shook his head. "Sherlock, you don't think that Rosie—" 

"Shush, John," he said. "I am merely looking at all the facts I have before me."

They looked at each other and John was forcibly reminded of the times Rosie had implied she wasn't safe, that there were people chasing her, trying to kill her. He saw every jumpy twitch and flickering observation on replay. He knew it was logical, but he hated to think of Rosie like that, like a killing machine running only on survival instinct.

Lestrade spoke up. "On the way back, she was a bit tense, but it wasn't all that surprising. A case like the one we had last night is tough for anyone, and she's just a kid. She said she was fine." 

"How did she act?" Sherlock asked.

Lestrade shrugged. "On the way there, she was always looking out of the cruiser, looking into windows and watching the mirror for any cars that might be following us, but I knew she's had a rough life. On the way back, though, she could barely stop moving. Tapping her fingers and the like, following every shadow with her eyes."

By the time Lestrade had finished, Sherlock had his phone to his ear and was looking at John with a slightly worried look. "Mrs. Hudson?... Yes, I know it's early… no, I need you to see if Rosie is in her flat… yes, that would be excellent." 

He pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed the speaker phone button. Everyone listened as Mrs. Hudson bustled around and knocked on the door to Rosie's flat several times. 

"She might be asleep, Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson said.

John shook his head. "I have never seen her asleep except for that very first night. She used to lay down in the bathtub, but she'd always be up before I could open the door to my room. There is no way she would sleep through someone coming down the stairs, much less knocking on her door.

"I could go in if you like, dear. I have the keys right here." They heard the jingling of the key ring.

"Please do Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock said. 

There was some more rustling and a click of a door latch. They heard her walk around the flat for a few moments before announcing that it was empty. 

John and Sherlock looked at each other.

"Oh, there's a note here on the counter!" Mrs. Hudson said. "It says, 'I'm going out. Tell Lestrade he needs to work on his date venues, but he has a nice eye for the out of place.' Oh, is she silly! That detective inspector is far too old for her." 

Lestrade snorted. "Knew something was off." 

"Thank you Mrs. Hudson, that's all we needed," Sherlock said. 

Mrs. Hudson tutted. "Is she alright? I told her not to go outside by herself. A girl isn't safe on these streets!"

"She is far safer than most men, I would say. Don't worry, we will find her if she's still in London," Sherlock said. 

"See that you do, young man," she said. "I expect nothing less." And with that she hung up the phone. 

Lestrade cleared his throat. "So she killed him, then?" 

Sherlock nodded. "It makes the most logical sense. I knew she had killed several times before for her own safety. There were people after her, she confirmed this, but what has this man got to do with it? He just barely fits the drug scene, very high scale. He could be employed by one of them."

John paced over to the wall, facing away from the speculation and far off thoughts in the room. "She's in danger, Sherlock. You said that there were six men who took her away. Where did they take her? Is she dead? I made her stay in London when she could have been moving on. I've gotten her killed and she just saved us from being murdered in our own home!" 

He was interrupted from his rant when Sherlock's hands landed on his shoulders and gently turned him around. His face was tilted up by Sherlock's fingers and he was forced to look into Sherlock's determined eyes.

"I am almost certain she is still in London, John," he said. "We will find her. We may have time, this attack only happened a few hours ago. The fact that there were multiple men means they wanted to take her alive."

"We have to save her. I owe her too much," John said.

Sherlock nodded. "I have some questions for her. I believe that she is more involved in our lives than I had previously thought."

John's eyebrows pushed together. "How do you mean?" 

Sherlock turned to the door, looking like his mind was working at a thousand miles per hour. "I'll explain after we've found her. Lestrade, you need to find the idiot who spit on the ground as soon as possible. Rosie's life is on the line, and I will accept nothing less than her alive and back in Baker Street." 

Lestrade nodded, pulling out his phone. "On it."

Sherlock took John's hand. "We'll find her."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

It was less than an hour before they caught the man and had him in the interrogation room. Sherlock was pacing, impatient with the whole mess and ready to find Rosie. He wanted to bring her safe, for John's sake at least, but he also needed information. He was right not to trust her. If what he was beginning to see was correct… but it was bad form to theorize without all the facts.

John was less than happy at the moment. His lips, so soft that morning when they had woken up, were pressed into a thin line of agitation and worry. His brow was creased as he stared intently into the interrogation room. Sherlock wanted to smooth those lines away with his hand, kiss away the tension around his eyes, but that wasn't appropriate. Not when there was serious work to be done. Not when things were so new between them.

On the other side of the glass, the man held there was obviously guilty of something. He was twitchy and his eyes shifted to the left every few seconds, trying to think up an alibi, no doubt. He jumped when Lestrade threw open the door, letting it crash against the wall. 

The DI started in immediately. "Where is the girl you took from the flat you broke into with the dead man on the floor? We know she's alive and we know you had a part in this, so spit it out before you get thrown in jail for murder and kidnapping."

If Sherlock had not been so focused on the case, he would have commended Lestrade on his technique. The accused man trembled and began to speak, fear written over every word. 

"It was just a job, sir. We didn't do nothin' to 'er, just took 'er a few miles out and strung 'er up in a old butchery. No one's there, we checked and all. She didn't like it at all, but we let it be, I swear, I swear!"

Lestrade slammed his fist on the table. "I need an address _now_." 

The second the street name was out of his mouth, Sherlock grabbed John's arm and made his way out. Lestrade burst out of the room with them.

"Donovan, where is she?" Sherlock asked.

Lestrade shrugged grimly. "Desk work." 

"Bring her with," he said. "A female presence is supposed to be more consoling." 

John looked sharply at him. "What are you saying?" 

"She has a history of abuse, probably some form of PTSD to go with it, women are more calming to women in a situation such as this."

"You think that they might have-"

Sherlock interrupted before John could fully grasp the idea. "I'm considering all possibilities." 

"Right," Lestrade said. "Donovan! Fall in, we've got a job for you."

~~~

The site was not far from where the original scene had been. There was a team of officers in front of them, pounding on the door of a boarded up butchery. When no response came, they broke down the door and rushed in, fanning out to search the whole area. 

Sherlock and John followed, but Sherlock was loathe to wait around for the rest of the team to get to where they needed to be. A faint scent of cleaner was scattered throughout the whole place. On the cracked linoleum floors, he followed the white swipes and drips where bleach had made their way from Rosie's body inadvertently cleansing the dirt away. John was at his heels, breathing calm and steady, ready to fight at a moment's notice.

The trail stopped at a padlocked door leading to the room where the hogs would have hung for cooling and disemboweling. Sherlock put his ear to the door, listening for any form of movement. A sob echoed through coupled with a soft jingling that could have been chains being pulled. 

"Here!" he called, pulling at the padlock. "She's here. We need to open this door immediately!" 

John rushed to the door. "Rosie? Rosie, are you okay?" 

The sobs got louder, more panicked, and the sounds of chains were more frequent but she didn't respond in any other way. There was something off about this, something Sherlock couldn’t quite put his finger on, but an officer was rushing forward with a pair of heavy duty cutters that sliced through the bolt in seconds. John scrabbled at the lock and flung open the door, rushing in to save Rosie from her bonds.

She was completely unclothed. Her face, cut with tears tracks, was covered in blood from her kill and the skin on her arms and neck had begun to irritate from the direct contact with the bleach. Her hands had been bound above her head to a hook and her feet chained to the floor. She couldn’t have been able to move herself more than a few inches in either direction without attempting to break her hands and shoulders, though it was obvious that she had tried. Her wrists were bloodied and her left arm twisted at an angle that, should any more pressure be applied, both her shoulder and her wrist would be dislocated in a moment's notice. 

More notably however were the scars. None of them were new, though that didn't make the gruesomeness of them any less. Her entire torso, her hips, the tops of her legs and over her buttocks. Almost every piece of skin below her shoulder blades and above the middle of her thighs had some form of scratch, burn or cut from years ago. The most prominent one, however, completely covered her left shoulder blade. It was a burn, puckered pink and something Sherlock had just caught a tiny glimpse of just the day before. The letters there confirmed his worst nightmare, the idea that had formed that he hadn't wanted to face.

J M

Sherlock registered all of this on his first glance. John had begun running to her, hands raised and pain adorning his features, but before he could get within a few feet of her, Rosie crumpled into herself as much as possible. Her shoulders pulled up as her feet rose to her chest, but the chains kept them from ever being able to cover or defend herself from blows. Her knees were tight together, but her ankles were held apart by the chains, without any hope of linking them.

The sobs became louder, more like moans, and Rosie's eyes were screwed shut. She didn't seem to hear a word that John was saying. Another step closer and she began to thrash against her bonds. Sherlock heard a small snap of bones and saw blood trickle down her forearms. He grabbed John and pulled him back roughly, watching Rosie's eyes open, glassy, terrified, not recognizing who was before her, instead seeing a different scene play before her eyes. 

"John, you mustn't approach her," he said. John was struggling to get out of his arms, but he didn't let him. "She's in the middle of a flash back, she'll only hurt herself if anyone gets too close, especially a man." 

He looked over his shoulder. "MI Donovan?"

The sergeant pushed to the front of the team, eyes wide as she observed the skittish girl strung up before them. 

"You must talk softly to her, and approach slowly. Do not touch her whatsoever. She will inadvertently hurt herself or you should that happen. You must draw her out of the memory and into reality. Then you will be able to release her from her bonds." He turned to John and stripped his jumper before he could even protest, handing it over to Donovan. "She responds dramatically to scents. They are the most potent memory makers. That is more than likely why they poured bleach and spat tobacco on her. Both are strong scents that likely have emotional scarring associated with them. Get that jumper as close to her nose as possible so she can smell it. She has put John's scent into that category of safety. Hopefully that will pull her out of the flashback."

Rosie had stopped thrashing about, but her muscles were still tense and ready to spring into action. Her eyes were squeezed shut against the perceived threat. At Donovan's first step, they flew open, glassy and unseeing.

"Rosie, love," Donovan started, her tone more soothing and soft than Sherlock had ever heard it. "We aren't here to hurt you. We need to get you down from those chains and get you to safety." 

Rosie's breath heaved and more tears streamed from her eyes. 

Donovan took another few steps forward, holding the hand with the jumper forward and shaking it so that the scent could filter into the air more. Rosie's nostrils flared and her eyelids flickered. 

Donovan was just a step away from her now. "Let us help you, sweetheart. We will get you down from there and catch these bad men." She held John's jumper just beneath Rosie's nose.

Suddenly all the tension left her body and she buried her nose into the fabric, crying and shaking. Donovan moved closer, knowing the spell had been broken and laying a soft hand into her hair. The man with the cutters moved forward slowly, slicing through the chains at her feet first, then, after some whispered instructions, cut the chains on her hands, letting Rosie fall into Donovan's arms and be lowered softly to the floor where she curled into a ball, clutching the jumper to her face. 

John stepped forward tentatively, afraid of startling her any more. Sherlock had a hand on his shoulder, watching the woman crumple into a tiny, sobbing girl. The feeling in his stomach was tight and uncomfortable, but he held back, waiting.

"John," she sobbed out. "Sherlock." 

John ripped himself from Sherlock's grasp and went to her, touching her hands and shoulders, assessing the damage and the treatments that needed to be done. Sherlock doubted that Rosie could be so easily fixed. 

He slipped his long coat off his shoulders and knelt in front of her, covering her naked and scarred body. She clutched at it, her tears and blood soaking into the fabric. He realized he didn't care that she stained it, but that he wanted to get her as far away from them as possible at the same time. His mind told him to leave her, dump her in the middle of the Thames and be rid of her as soon as possible to protect what he had already completed. His heart told him to gather her in his arms and carry her home, listen to what she had to say because John is almost never wrong about people like them.

"Th-thank you," she stuttered out. 

John ran hand through her blood-matted hair. "Anytime, love. Anytime."

Sherlock stared, unable to respond. There was information missing, connections that could not be adequately named without the past. Rosie had a love that was obvious, but a heartless killer instinct. He never could get a proper hold on her. She was one person and then another. Afraid and ruthless. Protective and selfish. Not to mention she knew more about them than anyone had any right to know. She could have learned it on the street, it could be a huge coincidence…

But Sherlock didn't believe in coincidences.

~~~

It didn't take long for them to get Rosie back to Baker Street. She had not been pleased to be touched by anyone other than him or John, but they had eventually coaxed her into being looked at by the paramedic team on hand. After they bandaged her wrists and ankles and thoroughly rinsed her down to treat the mild chemical burns, they released her into their care. 

The cab ride was taken in silence. Now that there were no other people to threaten her person, Sherlock observed her closing off, never able to look him of John in the eye and shying away when either of them so much as twitched in her direction. Her eyes flicked every direction, surveying, calculating, full of fear; it set Sherlock's teeth on edge, made him watch his own back. The cab was becoming a little too enclosed for him and he was reminded of his time away, looking around every corner. His fingers twitched for the stolen knife. 

John was in a similar state. Back rigid, eyes surveying the passing cars, left hand clenching unconsciously.

They were a perfect group weren’t they? A young abused girl on the run, a soldier returned from Afghanistan, and a dead man. 

Well, a dead man with a new mission. 

Rosie jumped out the cab when they arrived at Baker Street, fleeing through the front door as quickly as her fingers could turn the lock. Sherlock leapt after her, knowing she wanted to be rid of them, knowing she wanted to run. He couldn’t allow that.

"Rosie," he called after her, threat subtle in his voice. She continued as if he had not spoken, flinging open the door and racing toward her own flat. He followed. The information he needed was too close for it to get away now.

He flew down the stairs after her, throwing open the door with a recklessness that he thought he had thrown away while abroad. Unexpectedly, he was met, not with an angry girl, but with a flash of silver and a stinging on his cheek, freezing him to the spot and fixing his eyes on the threatening line of shoulder and knife.

"Sherlock, what's going on?" John called, running in after them in hot pursuit and stopping just in the doorway, staring at the standoff before him. "What the hell is this about, you two?"

Sherlock didn’t take his eyes from Rosie's hands, which did not waver in the slightest at the combined threat of he and John. She was either confident in her skills, or confident that they would let her go. He had no intentions of doing such a thing.

"She's a part of this, John. A piece of this entire thing, a part of the game," he said.

"The game?" John's eyes flickered between the two of them. "You said it was over. Moriarty is dead. He was dead on the rooftop when you jumped." 

"Yes," he said. "I thought so, too. Until this happened, until she showed up and started acting out. Strange set of skills, running from the ghost of her past, the threat of death, and knowing too much about us as it is. She is a part of the network that I never came into contact with. I'd always thought it strange that the police got to his pieces in America. I thought it must have been a clever cop that got lucky, but it wasn’t, was it?" He shifted his eyes to Rosie's. "Your drug lord ties. They were with Moriarty. He controlled them, that's why they were able to find so many assassins to take you on. But they'd trained you too well. You were the unsuspecting soldier, the connection between them and the boss, so he burned you, to teach you a lesson, to show you that you were his."

She flinched, her most scarred shoulder tensing like a coil, ready to spring in a second's notice. Her eyes were alight with anger as she assessed him, but her teeth were bared in a mockery of the smile she usually wore, harsh and wistful, full of pain no person should have to bear. Sherlock recognized the sight. She really was his mirror image. 

"As always, Sherlock. You have the facts, but none of the details." She moved like a snake, knife flying, thudding, and vibrating in the wood just over his shoulder. He hadn't even had time to put his hands up.

She whipped around, pacing like a trapped animal. "I am _not_ his. I am not _anyone's_." She words came off her lips like an incantation, said repetitively until believed. Her hands pulled at her scalp, clawed at her skin. She gasped in, an aborted sob. "But I was. God, once I was." 

John laid a hand on Sherlock's waist, shifting past him and into the line of danger. "What are you talking about, Rosie?"

"Moriarty," she breathed, a drop tearing a new trail down her cheek.

Sherlock's hands clenched in anger. James Moriarty had dealt so much pain and sorrow in he and John's life, caused a rift that was barely breached and still new in its foundations, rickety and fragile, made of passion and longing. By all means he should be dead, gone and finished, and yet here he was, in the form of a broken girl that somehow worked her way into their lives. This was dangerous. This was being covered in gasoline and handing her, handing Moriarty, the lit match.

"What is he up to? What has he done?" He asked.

"What has he done?" She choked on a laugh. "What has he done, you ask?" 

She strode to the small table and pulled out a chair, gesturing for them to sit. John moved first, capturing Sherlock's wrist as he went and pulling him along cautiously. They sat together, fingers intertwined and shoulders tensed in anticipation.

She slid into the chair across from them, eyes glassy and far away. "Where do I start?"

"I suggest from the beginning," Sherlock snapped.

She did not react, just stared, solemnly. After a moment, she took a deep breath, licking her lips and focusing her eyes.

"My mother died when I was three years old."

Sherlock sneered. "I did not ask of your tragic back story that begins when you were abandoned by your father, and left orphaned by your mother. When did he appear? How did he control you? The details do not matter."

"Sherlock," John warned.

She merely stared, a sad smile painted on her lips. "My mother died when I was three years old," she repeater. Her eyes lifted to Sherlock's. "You assume I got wrapped up in a gang and made my way to the top. It makes sense. They are protective and have a penchant for saving people, so they would pick up a little abandoned girl."

"Obviously," he replied.

"You're wrong," she said. "I was picked up off the streets and taken into a home, but it wasn't some drug dealer."

Sherlock's world tipped on its edge. He sifted through all the information he had collected on her. The army trained skills, the use of unusual weapons and stealth, her ability to observe the world and take advantage of it, the restless look in her eyes and the brightness that appeared at a puzzle. He had assumed she was an anomaly, like he was, but oh how he was wrong.

"I should have killed you, the moment I saw you," he whispered.

She shook her head. "I should have let you. I should have left the second I saw John." 

Sherlock saw the unabashed pain in her eyes, the regret and the anger. She hated Moriarty and she hated herself just as much.

"What happened to you?" he asked. His chest ached as he watched her suffer because of her past. He felt her pain every time he thought of the years he was gone, years he could not take back or redo.

John was scowling, leaning back in his seat and looking between the two of them in anger. "What the hell are you talking about? Would someone like to explain to me since I seem to be five steps behind both of you?"

Rosie looked to him, eyes shining. "When I was just three, I was picked up off the streets and given a home by a man in a suit. I was raised by James Moriarty."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got a little long, and it ended in a lovely cliffhanger, but I promise you, that next chapter explains everything about Rosie's history. All the gory details. Well, maybe not everything. I could write a whole new series on her, but everything that matters for now. Thanks for reading! You're pretty amazing if you do :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been months since I updated. I hope you haven't turned away, but I have the next chapter? Yay? I hope you like it. Connections are being made and new (old?) characters are given names. Enjoy, beautiful faces. Your comments and kudos are my everything.

It seemed to Rosie that John was just a little bit shocked. His mouth hung open unattractively as he held loosely on to Sherlock's hand. Sherlock was taking it rather well; she knew that he hadn't quite suspected this. If he had known, he would have killed her ages ago.

Her hands shook as she pulled them into her lap. She never talked about her past, the time before she had met… well, if she could avoid it she did. Lingering too long on the past tended to set off her depression, make her think thoughts that were best left alone, but John and Sherlock needed to know, especially in light of the most recent developments.

She sighed and began, "Jim had had his eye on me for quite some time. I'd made a bit of a reputation for myself, even at three, when I was with my druggie mother. I was far brighter than most children my age. I'd managed to figure out not only what money was for, but also that it would give me food and stop my mother from beating me. And soon after, I was stealing from people and getting away without a scratch. No one could figure out how so many places were just getting swept clean. They thought it was my mom for a long time, which was probably why she got killed.

"Jim heard the stories from more than one of his employed homeless and decided to keep an eye out for this person who could rob so many people blind. He saw me at it one day, the first person who actually paid attention to a silent three year old with a bright smile. Apparently, he continued keep a close eye on me. When my mother died, he approached me, talked to me, and took me to his home. I never looked back, not even when I was subsequently beaten and trained. She wasn't much of a mother anyway.

"Jim was just little over twenty then, I think, but he had so many connections already. He was rich from those ties, the information that he had gathered on so many different kings and countries and politicians. He had houses across the world, but he raised me in Chicago. I didn't go to school when I was little," Rosie shook her head. "Don't ask me how he managed to get by the law. I'm not sure I've ever legally existed. But he taught me everything, which was a blessing at first, I think. I was too clever for my own good, quicker than all of my peers. He was really teaching me a special skill set, too. I was fluent in fourteen languages by the time I was seven and I could lie at the drop of a hat, not to mention I read people like you do, Sherlock. For a long time, he was my everything: father, mother, brother, and teacher." 

She sighed and licked her lips. The next part was less pleasant. "When I was eight, I met uncle Seb and suddenly I was not just clever, I was deadly."

Sherlock cut in, curious as ever. "Who was Uncle Seb?" 

"You've met him already, I assume," she said. "He was the man I killed last night, Sebastian Moran. Former Colonel of an American Special Operations unit. He trained me in hand to hand combat for years and years."

"And what happened that made you want to kill him?" Sherlock asked.

The pain in her chest flared for just a moment and she had to swallow back the bile. "It took a while before that happened." 

She took a deep breath and continued. "Around that time, Jim started sending me to deal with his associates in the area. Chicago was his biggest hub -- there had been Spanish gangs there that were powerful around the world for marijuana and heroin. They didn't respect me for quite a while, but they learned quickly that I was no child, even though I was so young. Things about me started changing when I was ten. The men noticed me more, wanted to hurt me in more ways than with a knife. So, Jim called in a favor and got me a new tutor, one that taught me how to be a woman, how to defend myself against men and manipulate them into what I wanted by applying makeup and playing dumb."

Sherlock made a noise of recognition. "Irene Adler. I knew that hair style from last night looked familiar. She taught it to you." 

She nodded, a small rueful smile turning the corners of her lips. "She was the one who started me on the path away from Jim. I remember her little off-hand comments to him about my upbringing. In secret, she used to tell me that I could be more than Jim's pet, that I was too clever for his games and deserved more than a life in a man's shadow. I knew she was trying to let me have a life that wasn't like what she had, but I started to believe her after a while. 

"When I was twelve, I convinced Jim to let me go to a grade school and high school under the pretense that I would be practicing my skills on my peers and searching for new recruits. So, for many a day, I got to be out of his gaze. I still did his bidding on everything he asked, I still believed that he was the end all be all on so many things in life. I still," she swallowed, "I still loved him."

"What happened to you?"

Rosie looked up at John, surprised he had spoken at all. "What do you mean?"

John shook his head. "Well, for one, you turned out nothing like he did, and I know that Irene Adler didn't bring you up to love like you do because, I have met her, and she is no basket of roses."

Rosie chuckled at the description. Things had changed. A lot. She could do nothing to smother the smile that made its way onto her face.  
John raised his eyebrow at her speculatively. "You made a friend at school?"

She blushed. 

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "No, John. She made a _boy_ friend at school." He shot her a disappointed look. "You know you shouldn't let another person define who you are."

Rosie narrowed her eyes at the assumption. "So you'd rather me be a psychopath."

"It would be much more interesting," he sighed, appraising his fingernails. 

She rolled his eyes. "And you'd be dead three times over if I had, by now." 

"Unlikely." 

She held out her hand and counted on her fingers. "Cabbie, pool, roof." 

John leaned forward. "You were involved in those?" 

Rosie shook her head. "Not the taxi or the roof. I had changed by then, but my lack of presence made a difference. John, you would never have gotten so close to Sherlock had I been the one looking at it. Jim underestimated you where I never would have, especially after my observations at school. The roof meant I would have been another sniper and another piece to the puzzle that you had to get through to find the endpoint. It would have been more complex." She looked carefully at them. "As for the pool, Irene might have made the call to stop it, but I was the reason he left."

Sherlock and John stared mutely at her, not comprehending how she could possibly have been involved in that situation. 

She laughed. "I really was his best kept secret, wasn't I?"

Sherlock scowled. "Continue." 

"Right." She cleared her throat. Why was she nervous? Why did she care if they thought badly of her after this? I wasn't as if they had any say in the matter of her past. She hadn't even had a choice in it. It just… happened. She lifted her head and began again. 

"I met him in my first day," she said. "I chose to go to one of the poorer schools, because recruits were slightly more difficult to manipulate there because they are so tightly wound together. Most of the children there knew my reputation already and wanted nothing to do with me. Many of them bullied me, but nothing would really get under my skin. I was used to hatred on so many fronts that one that just spouted nasty words was less than nothing, almost funny. That was just my life up until then. They called me 'ice eyes' instead of my real name."

"What _is_ your real name?" John asked.

Rosie tilted her head. "It is Marie Rosalie Valence. Jim, Seb, Irene, my mother- they all called me Marie. So did all of my teachers. I hated that name. It's not that it's bad, I just… I almost preferred 'ice eyes'."

"I see where Rosie came from then," John said, nodding to himself.

She smiled again and shook her head. "It didn't actually come from that. Let me explain.

"There was one boy at school who didn't bully me. It wasn't that he was nice, because he really wasn’t at all. But he wasn't vicious either. He was almost playful about it." She shook her head. "We continued to go to school together for the next year and a half or so. One day, I encountered him with his friends on the street and he made a comment that was actually spot on about me. When I turned to look at him, he just smiled like he was the cleverest human being on the planet while his friends cowered. I gave him a cut on the cheek from my throwing knife for being an idiot who crosses me and told him not to do it again. He laughed and asked if I ever just had fun sometimes, if I ever just didn’t take life seriously. I got angry and went away. Later, I realized I left my knife with him and went to go back and pry it from the post I had hit and realized he'd stolen it. Eventually, he gave it back in the most unconventional of ways. I went to him and, then we just…connected." She smiled at the table, feeling the burning gazes on her face.

"He used to tell me that I was just a basket of roses all the time, with my rosy pink cheeks, and bright sparkling eyes. So he called me Rosie."

John chuckled. "It seems pretty accurate."  
She shook her head. "You didn't know me back then. If my eyes were sparkling, it was because I had just figured out the best way to beat  
you. I never smiled unless it was viciously."

"That seems to be more accurate," Sherlock grumbled. 

John gave him a look, to which Sherlock merely rolled his eyes. He turned back to her. "That seems to be the extremely shortened version."

Rosie chuckled to herself, reliving her first real friendship, the video tapes, communicating with music, soft fingers on her cheek for the first time. She shrugged. "Well you two aren’t just 'we went on a case together, I saved Sherlock and we were friends' either." 

"Yes," John said. "How do you know about all that?" 

Sherlock cut in. "John, if she was raised by James Moriarty, then without a doubt she would know about his obsession with me. More than likely she had her own obsession with me. Am I right?"

Rosie grimaced. "You're not wrong. I did have a bit of an obsession with you."

"Did?" Sherlock raised his brow.

She rolled her eyes. "Do," she admitted. "But just so you know it’s a lot less than it was before. You stopped being such a huge deal when I went on the run." 

"And how did that happen?" John asked.

"I'm getting to that," she said. "Ian, that was the boy's name, showed me what it was like to have a real family who would care and protect me. Honestly, when he found out that Jim had been beating me since I was a child, Ian was ready to find him and tear his head clean from his body." She frowned at the memory of that day, how terrifying it was to see such anger on Ian's face. "I obviously convinced him not to; he would have been dead before he got the door. 

"Ian and our friends had become my real family and I wasn't about to lose them so quickly. For years, I managed to keep them a secret from Jim and Seb. Irene, however, noticed immediately. Told me I was love sick from the moment I came home the first day Ian and I talked. I denied it for ages and ages." She shook her head at herself. "Such a waste of time."

John and Sherlock looked at each other and Rosie watched as they exchanged knowing glances, also regretting their lost years. It set a pit in her stomach. She missed Ian so much it hurt sometimes. Usually by now she would have her iPod on and she would be listening to her an Ian's music exchanges, hearing the conversations and issues they had communicated with them. It helped her quench any stray panic that he wasn't alive. 

She took a deep breath and continued. "But that's beside the point. During those years we got closer and closer and one day we just looked at each other and decided enough was enough. We were sixteen, I think, when we started dating. The next year was when things went terribly wrong." 

She hesitated. This was the part that had destroyed her for so long, still gave her nightmares and made her stomach turn. She still felt ashamed of it six years after the fact. Not her fault. It was not her fault. She couldn't have stopped it. Just like Ian said. In. Out. Seb is gone now. She killed him. He's gone.

She looked up and met Sherlock's even gaze. There was no pity there whatsoever, only an anger that seemed to make his voice tremble as he spoke, "That was when the assault happened. Moriarty found out about the boy who was poisoning his experiment."

She nodded. "They didn't know who he was or where they could find him. As soon as I found out that they knew, which was the second they found out, I cut off contact with Ian. He had known that it might happen, so he never worried that I might have left him for some reason other than being revealed." She rolled her eyes. "As if I would ever leave him for another reason." 

"So," John cut in. "After they found out about your 'affair'," he curled finger quotes around the word, "you went on the run from them?"

"Oh I wish it had been that easy." She shook her head, feeling the tell-tale pressure on her chest. "No, they took me to an old butchery and slung me up like you saw today. Cut me open several times and poured bleach on the wounds the first day. The second day…" She swallowed and pressed her lips together, taking a deep breath to try and quell the urge to hyperventilate. "Sebastian had his way with me. He liked to whisper in my ear when he did it and I could smell his tobacco breath every time. It made me sick, and by the end of the day, I associated the scent with what was to come." 

She had to stop for a moment, memories floating around in front of her stinging eyes an blocking up her throat. A gasp involuntarily bubbled out of her chest and she felt a tear trickle down her cheek. John started to say something but she pushed through and continued. 

"It never hurt," she sighed, wiping away the evidence of her fear. "They wanted me to associate sex with them for the rest of my life. They wanted to tear me down. Jim got his last piece on day three. He burned his initials onto my back," she looked at Sherlock. "You saw it. He branded me as his, so I would always know, always feel it." 

She paused for a second, trying to detach herself from the memory before she slipped fully into a panic attack. After a few breaths, she continued. "They left after branded me and the police turned up with Ian about an hour later. It took about two months for me to get out of the hospital for the burns and another three months to regain regular use of my shoulder. Psychologically, though, I didn't recover for much, much longer. I still don't think I am fully recovered."

She looked up at the two of them then. John seemed to be clenching Sherlock's hand to keep himself rooted to his seat. Sherlock however, appeared to be thinking at a thousand miles per hour, probably making the same connections as she had made when the men who had captured her that morning left her completely alone. He said nothing about it however, nodding at her to continue.

"When I did manage to piece myself together with Ian helping, we started devising a plan. I was guessing that Jim had thought that I was going to die after they left me or that I would be too damaged to make any kind of move without them looking over my shoulder. They didn't know I had been calling my own shots for as long as I had associated with Ian. Honestly, it was sloppy of him not to just kill me, because the minute I came out of my depression for more than a day, Ian and I began our mission to tear down his network, starting with Chicago and the rest of America. We worked carefully with the police for _months_ to set everything up. Ian kept a really close eye on you, Sherlock, during my recovery, because he, well we, never wanted you to fall into his dance. But then John came along…" 

She looked John right in the eye then, capturing his attention with a wry smile. "I remember when Ian told me that the cabbie plan had failed because of a mysterious shooter. I was in the hospital still, on my stomach because of the burn. He said that a Dr. John H. Watson was moving in with Sherlock that day and it was the first time I had smiled in weeks. I told him that we had another wild card in the deck, one to match him. He laughed and said, 'Well they better not wait as long as us then.'" 

"Yeah, that didn’t happen," John said, turning to Sherlock with a little smile. "Better late than never, though." 

Sherlock smirked back at him. "That is a lot of lost time to make up for." 

"We'll have time," John said, leaning over to steal a kiss.

Rosie rolled her eyes through the short exchange, her gut clenching with longing. " _Anyway_ , we made up a plan and managed to make Jim's entire empire in America go crashing to the ground the day before your escapade in the pool. Irene called it in, saving her own skin, but also thinking that I was more than capable of handling myself against Jim. I thought that I could too, but when Jim finally returned to America, he cut me off at the knees." 

She sighed, frustrated at this entire part. "He took Ian, obviously, and made me search all over Chicago for him in the dead of winter. Finally, he revealed him and told me to run. He said as long as I stayed alive so would Ian. So I ran." 

Sherlock made a skeptical noise. "You trusted him to actually keep his promise?" 

She shrugged. "I thought I would be able to dismantle the network and get him back. Isn't that what you did for John?" 

Sherlock glowered. "I never let Moriarty handle John after the pool." 

She rolled her eyes."You act like Jim knew about Ian for the entirety of the time I was with him. After you jumped, though, you knew he would keep his word and not immediately kill John out of spite."

"Well, it wasn't like he was alive to give the kill order," John said. "Dead as a doornail. Shot himself, right Sherlock?" 

Sherlock kept his silence, staring at Rosie with a sour look on his face. 

John shifted, turning his shoulders in the detective's direction. "Sherlock?"

"John," Rosie started calmly, "With what happened to me today… I think things might have gotten more complicated." 

"Are you saying he might not be dead?" John asked, his voice flat.

Sherlock shook his head. "There is a very slim chance that he survived the shot, but you know how he is John. Theatrics. The amount of blood that I saw…" He shook his head again. "It may be possible." 

John turned back to Rosie. "What makes you say that he is alive? Couldn't Moran have just set this up and paid his little thugs beforehand just to send you thinking like this?"

Rosie sighed. "If Jim really is dead, then I can guarantee you that Ian would have found me, he's the best damn tracker I've ever seen. He would have found me very shortly after Sherlock jumped. Moran and Ian think very much alike, but Ian has the advantage because I taught him all of Seb's weaknesses. Unless there was an airtight contingency plan just for Ian, he would be here and we never would be in this situation. I also wouldn't have had people after me the last two years because they would have known there was no more reward for my life after Jim died. He's still out there, directing this."

John seemed to be holding his tongue about some things and Rosie could guess every one of them. John and Sherlock didn't know Ian. They probably thought that Ian could have been bribed to not come back, or he could have possibly been persuaded to change sides, work with Jim, or the most probable outcome: he was dead. Rosie still remembered the photo that one of her consorts had showed her, one that had been a turncoat in their plan and spied still. The photo had been blurry and full of blood, but Rosie would be able to notice Ian in any state of being. The friend had told her that he was surviving on the thought that she was still fighting. She knew that the photo wasn't a fake; Ian was alive, she was sure of it. That had been the last time she had contact with anyone about her situation and that had been the last week that a sniper had come after her until Moran showed up in London.

As for whether he was a turncoat… well, Rosie would deal with that when it came time to find him, but she was doubtful that he would have such a huge change of heart, stubborn man that he is.

She didn't tell John any of this, assuming Sherlock would understand and tell him later. There was no use arguing over something she was absolutely positive of. It was a waste of her energy.

"He sent this to us as a warning," she told them. "He's going to start his dance again soon and now his attention isn't going to be divided between the two of us. We are going to be in the same place, which is why I want to leave. If he is battling on two fronts, then we have a better chance."

Sherlock leaned forward. "And what resources do you have Miss Rosie?"

She lifted her chin. "I have one or two links tied in that are more than likely still alive. I can make my way on my own. I've made it this far, haven’t I?"

John narrowed his eyes. "No, you've _survived_ this long." 

She shook her head. He didn't understand the gravity of the situation, what she would do to get Ian out of the situation she had put him in. She turned to Sherlock in hopes of a more sympathetic case. 

"He's right," Sherlock said. "We don't want survival, we want attack. There is no 'maybe' or 'likely' to be had in this situation. It is in the utmost importance that Moriarty is found, extracted and taken care of as soon as possible. The best way to do this, now that John knows everything, is to use all available resources and unite and communicate as one unit. From there we can formulate a plan and create different fronts to fight him with." 

Rosie leaned back, narrowing her eyes. "You and I have very different ends to these goals, Sherlock. You just want him out of your hair, but I have something precious stuck in his minefield. We can't just go around and start blowing it up."

They sat in a dead lock staring match. She was not going to give this up. She would leave right now, hell, she would kill both of them if she thought they were harboring plans to kill Ian. It wasn't an option. 

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted when they heard the doorbell ring. Mrs. Hudson bustled out and opened it, politely answering to the male voice. Rosie's hand went to grip the knife hidden at her belt, her stomach dropping like a stone. They had been speaking for a few hours, so it was mid-afternoon, far too early for Lestrade to be calling on them for the kidnapping. Possibly it was a client for Sherlock and John, but with the events of the past day, it just seemed unlikely. 

She rose from her chair at the same time John did. Sherlock's arm shot out an caught her before she could make her way to the door. 

"Not yet." His hand was an iron grip on her arm as John pulled his gun from the back of his jeans. "John is more than capable of handling anyone looking for you. You are far too close to the edge to go running into a fight. You'd kill them too quickly. We may need information from this person." 

She didn't like it, but she let John open up the door and slowly go up the stairs, his gun hidden behind his back. Rosie heard him call out, "Who's at the door, Mrs. Hudson?"

"Oh, you all are downstairs!" Mrs. Hudson said. "This young man wanted to talk with you and Sherlock about a missing persons case. I was just telling him that you all were very busy already with Rosie—"

"Who?"

Rosie's throat closed up when she heard his voice. She shook her head. It was a mistake. She used to do it all the time when she was first on the run, hear his voice in perfect strangers. They had just been discussing him, it couldn't be—

"What was that name you just said?" the man continued.

There was a rustle of clothing and Mrs. Hudson gave a yelp. John's voice rang out sharply, "Get in your flat Mrs. Hudson." 

Sherlock's grip on her arm became painful and Rosie realized that she had begun fighting him in order to get a glimpse through the door. The voice was just too familiar, she just wanted to look—

"Who are you?" John asked, taking each step carefully until he was in the landing. 

The man shuffled. "How do you know that name?" 

"There are a lot of people named Rosie. We have one that happens to be our neighbor."

"I don't believe in coincidences, Dr. Watson." 

There was a soft click. "I don't either." 

Rosie turned to Sherlock and whispered, "No, no, no. You can't kill him. Don't, please!" 

Sherlock paused for a moment, studying her carefully. Then, he nodded with hard eyes, loosening his grip. "You must wait here. Am I understood?"

She nodded. She would do anything at this point. Sherlock slipped up the stairs and called out. "Jacket, shoes, shirt and trousers off, now." 

There was silence for a few seconds before Sherlock barked, "Do it." 

Clothing rustled off and was picked up. Sherlock's footsteps echoed up the stairs and stopped in the middle of their living area. 

"He's burning them isn't he?" 

"Yes," John said. 

"I stole new clothes before I came to England just for that purpose." 

John stayed silent. 

"Rosie?" 

She clenched her fists, afraid to come out after so long without seeing him. It was dangerous, suddenly the fears that she had before were being forced to the front of the queue. She knew that Moriarty was alive. This was a power play. But she could use it to her advantage possibly? She wouldn't let him out of her sights again. It was the only option.

She went to the door and peered up through the slight opening and froze. Her hands shook as she cracked it open further to look at the blond haired man in his underwear staring down the stairs with piercing green eyes. 

Her lips trembled and she named him. 

"Ian."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yes I am terrible at updating. I am truly sorry. I will attempt to update more often. No guarantees as to when. This fic will be finished eventually, I swear my life on it.
> 
> Lots of angst this chapter with not a lot of light in the future. See tags for dark themes.

"Not another step Rosalie Valence," John's voice rang out in complete authority. At the foot of the stairs, Rosie froze, still staring at the intruder with shining eyes. The man standing before John, nearly naked, was leaning around the door frame to the stairs, staring helplessly down them like he was being pulled by a magnet he really didn't want to fight off. He started to reach his hand to the railing when John took a step forward. 

"I thought it was implied that you should stay where you were," he growled.

The man looked at him sharply. "What did you do when you first saw your love not dead?"

Rosie snorted back a laugh and both of them looked at her.

The man tilted his head. "What did he do?" 

Rosie nodded toward John who scowled in response.

The man cracked a smile. "You punched him didn't you?" 

"That's none of your business," John snapped. "What are you doing here?" 

But the man was looking down the stairs with a grin on his face. "Really it was a fifty-fifty shot at a huge whack right to the face or a solid make-out session." 

"I was there," Rosie said in response. "There was absolutely no chance that Sherlock was getting a kiss." 

"None?" he asked, incredulous. "None at all?"

Rosie giggled and John stared down at her. She was glowing, her face turned toward the man in obvious adoration. She was calmer than he had ever seen her. He hadn't even noticed that there had been a constant tension around her shoulders and eyes until it was gone, replaced with a smile as she stared up at this stranger. She had said his name was Ian, but it she had also said it had been years since she had seen him. There are things about being held captive, especially if that captive was also tortured, that change them, make them hardened and distrustful.

John had seen the scars the second Sherlock had commanded the man to strip off his clothing, burns along his legs, cuts and scratches up his arms and across his torso, still healing whip lashes on his back. That kind of pain could drive a man insane. He'd seen it on patients who had been brought back to base after being prisoners of war for just a few months, and this man, Ian, had been in for years if Rosie was correct.

Sherlock called down the stairs then, "He was clean, but there are no guarantees that he wasn't chipped or something before he left." 

Ian raised his arm and pointed to a particularly recent scar on his bicep. "Gone already. I cut it out about a month ago when I got out." 

Sherlock peered down at him from the flat. "When you got out?" 

He pressed his lips together and shot a look to his right. "Am I allowed to have some clothes before we have this conversation?" He shook his head. "Actually, I don't care about my clothes. Are you going to allow me within five feet of the reason I'm alive or do I have to stare at her from a flight of stairs away for the rest of eternity?"

John and Sherlock looked at each other, debating the gravity of a situation where Rosie was kidnapped by someone she obviously trusted. They never got the chance to respond though, because Rosie made the decision for them.

She flew up the stairs two at a time and ran straight into Ian's arms, making him stumble back with the force of her impact. John lifted his gun again, aiming it straight at Ian's head, but nothing happened. They held each other tightly, eyes closed like neither could possibly believe that it was real, that the other was actually there. Ian slowly pulled her in tighter and buried his nose in her neck as she stretched on her toes. 

"I was worried you were dead," he mumbled against her skin, just barely loud enough for John to hear. 

Rosie slid a soothing hand into his hair and shook her head. 

"I missed you so much," he said. 

She squeezed him even tighter.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, staring determinedly right down the barrel of John's gun. "If I ever harm her, you have permission to shoot me right between my eyes. I know you wouldn't hesitate anyway, but this is me telling you that I would be more than pleased if you would kill every last person who hurt a hair on her head." 

"Tell us why you're here and we may not have to comply," Sherlock said from the head of the stairs. John noted how he eyed Rosie mistrustfully. 

"He's right, you've avoided all of the questions, Ian," Rosie said, pulling away. "What's going on?" 

Ian grimaced. "You didn’t get less perceptive in these years did you?"

Rosie slid away from him, a hard glint appearing in her eyes. "Why are you here?"

"I— he let me go, Rosie," he said. "I came to find you." 

Even John could hear the hesitance in his voice, the uncertainty that usually indicated a lie. He leveled his gun again just as Sherlock appeared at his elbow. 

"I'm growing rather tired of this game between Moriarty and I," Sherlock said over his shoulder. "Come upstairs and if you know what's good for you, you will tell me everything you know about Moriarty and his plan." 

John felt the swish of Sherlock's coat as he disappeared upstairs and John watched as, with a dark glance and a turn on the heel, Rosie quickly followed.

Ian took a step after her but John slid neatly in his way, finally cutting the man's attention from Rosie. 

"If you do one thing–" John started. 

"I won't hurt her," Ian said. "I was serious about what I said before. I'd do anything to keep her safe."

John tucked his gun neatly under Ian's chin. "I'm not worried about her," he said, voice low and deadly.

Ian smiled sadly, looking down the barrel of the gun. "Sometimes I welcome the thought of death, Dr. Watson, but I don’t wish death on others unless I absolutely have to. I don't have any kind of plans to kill Sherlock." 

John nodded. "See to it that you never do." He stepped aside and gestured up the stairs.

Ian went up slowly, but John trailed behind. He felt way over his head in this situation. Everything was happening so fast and he knew that he was three steps behind. He could barely grasp that Moriarty was still alive let alone face the fact that Rosie was his brain child and this insane intruder was Moriarty's recent captive. And he didn’t trust the man, didn't trust anyone at the moment.

Rosie's emotions were clouding her judgment so much that he was sure that she wouldn't make a decision loyal to he and Sherlock if it came down to it. Hell, he wasn't even quite sure of Sherlock at the moment – how was it possible that Sherlock had seen Moriarty blow his brains out and then not be absolutely positive that the man was dead? 

John shook his head and wiped his palms on his jeans. Now wasn't the time to be questioning motives and placing trust. He had a job to do. 

"What the hell?" 

John's eyes snapped up to see Ian's bare back in the doorway, fists clenched by his sides. He rushed up the stairs.

Sherlock stood in the kitchen doorway, clutching Rosie to him so that Ian could see the subdued fear in her eyes, a sharp silver knife pressed lightly to her throat.

The first thing that crossed his mind was the moment he and Sherlock were running from the police all those years ago. It was a bluff. He wouldn’t actually hurt her, he wouldn't – 

"Lay a hand on him and her blood may be the last thing of her that you ever touch," Sherlock growled.

John glanced over to Ian to see him frozen on the spot, hands reaching toward John. 

"Sherlock," Rosie whispered, hands shaking as she reached up to pry his fingers away from her throat.

"No." Sherlock pressed a little harder and a tiny red line appeared on her neck. The blade trembled for a second as Sherlock's body shook and he took a ragged breath in. Sweat glistened on his brow and his teeth were clenched.

John recognized a panic attack when he saw one. And what did Sherlock do when he was afraid? He attacked. 

Immediately, John shifted into action, grabbing hold of Ian next to him and shoving the man hard toward the couch with a gruff, 'sit the fuck down,' while moving smoothly toward his lover. He heard the satisfying thunk of Ian hitting the ground. 

"Sherlock look at me," John said. 

Sherlock took a step back pulling Rosie with him and growled, "No, John. This was supposed to be over and I will finish it as quickly as possible. I am done with this game." 

"Killing her will do nothing to help our situation, in fact it may hurt it," John reasoned.

"If I had killed her—"

"Then we wouldn't have never known Moriarty was alive in the first place."

"I would have figured it out."

"What after you were dead?" John said. "After I was dead?" 

Sherlock huffed. "We can use her to get information."

"We can use her to take him down –"

" _She's a part of him, John_. Or were you not listening to her downstairs?"

"She isn't. Let her go Sherlock."

"No. Not when letting her go means putting you in danger." 

John sighed, feeling the pent up anger and resentment beginning to flow forward. He hated when Sherlock did this, made John's decisions practically non-existent. "I can handle myself Sherlock."

Sherlock snarled. "I didn’t leave just to come back and you still die because I let this abomination at you." 

"No, you didn't," John yelled back. "You left so that when we died, we would die by ourselves, me by my own gun and you by your own goddamn idiocy!"

Sherlock threw the knife down and pushed Rosie out of the way then, moving forward to get in John's face. "How could I have taken you along John when all you would have done is be the perfect liability? Hmm? We both would have died then and what would have been the point of that?" 

No he did not get to do this. 

"It would have been better than being alone!" 

"Alone protects me John!" 

Of fucking course. 

"Then why are you here?"

The flat rang with the dead silence that followed. 

Sherlock blinked then, his eyes going from pure rage and emotion to nothing. Cold, calculating nothing. 

Fuck. Bad. Then why did John feel so satisfied?

Sherlock buttoned his coat. "We have guests." He paused. "I apologize. _I_ have guests. _You_ have to go to Tesco and get milk and tea."

John's chest clenched. He would not be left out again. Sherlock needed him. He – 

"Go." 

John took a step toward him."You've just had a panic –" 

"I. Am. Fine." He took a step toward the sitting room. "Leave, now." And with that he flounced perfectly over and sat primly in his chair eyes flicking to and fro over the shocked Rosie and Ian, dismissing John from further conversation. 

Johns hand clenched and unclenched. Clenched. Unclenched. 

_Trust Issues._

He closed his eyes. 

_Trust Issues._

His feet took him to the door. His coat was still on from earlier. On the way down, his knee gave a protest to the exertion. 

_Could it be that you've chosen to trust Sherlock Holmes of all people?_

He slammed the door on the way out. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________ 

Sherlock heard the door slam and let his eyes fall shut. 

He hated himself. 

He _hated_ himself. 

_He hated himself._

No. Focus. There was no time for this. The was no waiting period it had to be now. John wouldn't leave yet. All of his things were still here. They would speak. They would clarify all of this insanity. John would find himself between Sherlock's sheets again and everything would be fine. No explosions. No anger. Just John possessing Sherlock like he always had. Since the beginning. 

Focus. Information was right at his fingertips. Nothing would happen while Rosie and Ian were together, their love and fierce protection for each other would cancel out any threat. Rosie didn't want to kill him, he knew that. She didn't want to kill John. Motivation. What was her motivation? Was there? John was probably right. Rosie probably hated Moriarty. John was always right. John. 

"Sherlock?" 

John? No, John was gone. John is gone. John is leaving. John. John. 

Sherlock's eyes snapped open. Rosie was hovering just a few feet away, hand out as if to touch but not close enough to startle. Afraid. He'd taken a knife to her throat. Wrong. John was right, he was wrong. 

"I apologize for hurting you," he said. "I shouldn't have done that." 

Rosie blinked. "It's okay. I wouldn't expect anything else, but –" 

"I need to know what Moriarty is planning next," he said, turning to Ian. 

"Sherlock," Rosie sighed. 

"I need to know," he hissed. 

Rosie's eyes hardened. "You _need_ to go and find John and fix whatever it is that happened just there." 

Sherlock huffed. "He needs to cool off and I don't plan on wasting any time." 

"I don't really think that's advisable," Rosie said. 

"Well, I'm hardly going to sit around and wait for your _father_ ," Rosie flinched at the word, "to come and kill him off. Mycroft is bound to have cameras on him after this morning so he will be safe for the time being, but for now _you must tell me everything you know about Moriarty or none of it was for anything at all._." He took in a deep breath and directed his attention to the mostly naked man still sitting on the floor. "Now, speak." 

Ian looked up at Rosie for confirmation who sighed heavily and helped him up to sit in John's chair. She snatched the blanket off of the back and draped it around his shoulders. 

With a mumbled thanks to Rosie, Ian looked over at Sherlock. "He really honestly let me go." 

"Yes, now tell me everything he said," Sherlock growled irritably. 

Ian looked to the ground. "He first told me that you were still alive. Sebastian has been beating on me that day and I was frankly pretty bored with it. After five years, you know, it’s a bit sad that the best entertainment I got was when I was pissing off the colonel. He was under orders not to kill me. They used me sometimes to track people. Show me how close their guy was to getting Rosie and suddenly I can find anyone." 

He sighed. "He wanted me to find you. He said I could go to you and see if I could get your help to find Rosie and then he'd let us go in exchange for gift wrapping you and 'your blogger.'" He rolled his eyes. "I didn't need you to find Rosie. I could fucking find her anywhere. So when he let me go I cut out the tracker that he didn't know that I knew was in my arm, got rid of every scrap of clothes I had, sent them all on a train to France and made my way through the mid east until I ended up in London, following her trail." 

"Why did you come here then?" Sherlock asked. 

"I asked a nice policeman if they had seen her," Ian replied, sarcastic twist to his mouth. "An officer who said they remembered helping a girl like that recently pointed me to John's old address and his landowner pointed me to this address and I knew I was in trouble, but if this was where she was then I was going to follow the trail." 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Ironic that you showed up the day after Colonel Moran attempted to kill us all." 

Ian's jaw clenched. "He got here before me?" 

"I wasn’t exactly secretive when I returned," Sherlock said. "It was a wonder you didn't know where I was earlier." 

"Well, I wasn't exactly looking for you, man," Ian shrugged. 

Sherlock scoured him. Ankles had flecks from the soil found near the NSY and hands bore smudges that could only be from the bar not two blocks from the place, a hot spot for any off duty officers – he'd seen them a thousand different times on Lestrade's hands. His eyes were weary and angry and sad, flicking every few seconds over to Rosie, who had chosen to sit on the couch instead of closer to him, a more neutral territory and better to observe him from. The man was a completely open book. If he felt guilt it was only because he hadn't gotten to his love earlier. 

"What happened to Moran?" Ian asked. 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and sat back waving the question off to Rosie. 

"I killed him," she replied. 

Sherlock watched as Ian and Rosie exchanged looks for a long moment. 

"If anyone deserved the kill it was you," Ian said. 

Rosie merely nodded. 

"The landlady said Sherlock and John were helping you when I came in," Ian's eyes flicked up and down Rosie's body. "You don't look…hurt." 

Rosie took a deep breath. "He didn't. He knew I was coming and, after I killed him, had some people drag me off to an abandoned butchery and –" her voice cracked and her eyes dropped. 

Ian's body had tensed during the speech. "What happened." 

"Nothing," Rosie breathed. "Nothing they just…left me there." 

Sherlock filled in the gaps. "She was strung up with chains above her head and around her ankles, completely naked and covered in bleach."

Anger filled Ian's frame. His jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists, shoulders held square to his body in a fighting stance. "A warning," he clipped out. 

Rosie crossed her arms over her torso and nodded. 

Ian sprang up from the chair, startling Sherlock into jumping from his own seat in an attempt to stop him. But before anything could happen, Ian had swept the blanket from his own shoulders around Rosie and was pulling her into an embrace, his cheek on top of her head as she curled into his chest, her trembling fingers finding the edge of the blanket and gripping it tight, even though her eyes showed no signs of tears. 

Sherlock slowly returned to his seat and turned his head, eyes sliding closed of their own accord. He heard small whispers as Ian comforted Rosie. 

"It's okay, it's okay." 

"I deserved it, I'm sorry." 

"No, no. Never." 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." 

Sherlock's stomach turned even at the hushed sound of a skin running across fabric as Ian rubbed Rosie's shoulders. His hands shook, ached to hold John. To tell him that he could hardly live without John by his side, but he'd rather be alone than survive in a world without John Watson. 

He bolted up and into the kitchen, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water, his throat parched and body in need of some form of comfort. Last night had been perfect, glorious really. Everything he had ever asked for, dreamt of while he was gone. Morning had come swiftly and it was like everything had rained down. Rosie in trouble, terrible revelations, Sherlock's failure to protect even a small piece of what John cared about. Hell, Sherlock had even been a threat to the girl's life! 

He couldn't do it. John would never understand. John would never be happy with him, a self-loathing addict with a penchant to sacrifice himself at the mere thought of his partner's pain. John would leave him anyway. 

Yes, John would leave, of course he would. John would find someone he could be happy with, someone who would give him exactly what he wanted. Sherlock knew this before, why would one night of sex and a few seconds of painful confessions change anything? Sex didn't fix the problems that still existed between them, the resentment that obviously boiled in John's veins. 

No, Sherlock wasn't a good man, never wanted to be a hero but John forced him into it. Made him want to be more than a clever mind who solved interesting puzzles. John. 

John. 

The glass in his hand suddenly splintered, but Sherlock just kept squeezing, the stabbing pain centering his awareness to the transport so that he did not get lost in the mind. His breathing was ragged as a rivulet of blood dripped off of his knuckles, just like it had in the church just a few weeks ago, just like in the wasted streets of Paris after the fight with Moriarty's sniper, just like in the motel in San Juan where he just wanted his heart to _stop aching_. 

He unclenched his fist and walked slowly into his bedroom, quietly shutting the door behind him. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________ 

"What are we going to do, Ian?" 

Ian shook his head as he held his life between his arms finally. Everything around them seemed to be a mess, themselves included, but as long as she was there, Ian couldn't care less. 

"They're in so much pain. We have to help them somehow." 

He smiled into Rosie's hair. He could remember when Rosie would have said no such thing. _helping_ someone? No never, Marie Valence did not help people, except when she did. He could still remember Ricardo's face when she told him that Jim wanted her to kill him and she hadn't because she'd known his children would have starved, that she had taken a beating for letting him get away. Yeah, psychopath his ass. 

"This isn't something that we can help them with, Rose," he said. "We can't make them talk it out and see how much they care about each other." 

"I know but..." 

He nodded. "I know." 

He let loose a long sigh and leaned back to look at his love. There was a new scar across her forehead and a tiny nick at her chin. He ran a hand over a sensitive red splotch on her neck where that morning they must have poured the bleach over her body. The circles under her eyes were extremely dark and heavy as he brushed his thumbs over them. 

"When was the last time you slept?" he asked. 

She shrugged. "38 hours ago." 

"No," he shook his head. "Really had a full night's sleep. Like 8 hours or more." 

She chuckled a little. "5 years, 4 months, 23 days, and…" she paused for a second. "15 hours ago. Before he took you and told me to run for my life." 

"You need to sleep then." 

They heard the sound of the door opening and heavy footsteps climbing the stairs. John Watson appeared, carrying a bag with bread, tea, and a case of beer. 

The man surveyed the room, taking in Ian and Rosie, the empty black and silver chair, the broken glass in the kitchen. 

"Gone out then?" he said, moving around the shards to put the groceries away, popping open a beer at the same time. 

"Uhh, no," Ian said. "He's just in his room." 

John nodded, glanced at the floor again while taking a large gulp. "That blood on the floor?" 

Ian looked at Rosie, who seemed extremely worried. "Yeah it broke while he was holding it and I'm pretty sure he cut himself." 

John nodded. Blinked a few times. Nodded again. "He's a big boy, no doubt he can take care of himself." He downed the rest of the beer, popped another and moved through to the stairway. "Been a long day, I'm off to bed." 

"John," Rosie called. "It's barely past 6." 

John stopped and turned his head in their direction. "It's been a long day." 

"John–"Rosie protested. 

"Goodnight, Rosalie Valence." John said. "Goodnight, Ian. I'll kill you if I need to in the morning." 

And then he was up the stairs and gone. 

Rosie sighed in his arms. "This isn't going to be fun." 

~~~~~ 

And Rosie was right as usual. It was not fun to be in the presence of two lovers in the middle of a life changing argument, but to be honest Ian had always felt like he was in the middle of a war that he had no real deciding factor in. What with falling in love with a mastermind psychopath's Stockholm Syndrome daughter and being a part of the drug scene for most of his life, he felt right at home in the scorching glares and tension filled silences. 

Rosie however was not taking things as well. The few times she encouraged them to talk had ended in screaming, thrown china, and Ian thought he glimpsed a few tears escape John's eyes as the man dashed out of the house, but he couldn't have been sure. 

Ian tried to stay out of their place as much as possible because his presence seemed to agitate both men (even though they were never in the same room together). 

Sherlock ignored everyone in the entire place completely if he came out of his room at all barring the single time Rosie and he had exchanged a series of glances and glares that ended when Sherlock snapped out 'no, not yet,' the only three words he has spoken below shouting levels. 

John would glare at him and then immediately leave to run an errand or read a book in his room or generally be anywhere Ian wasn't. Ian wasn't the type of man that made people more uncomfortable than they already were, so he kept to Rosie's rooms. 

Rosie said that the few times she had talked to John about the fighting was terrible. She was either completely ignored or she could never get a word into the man's thick skull past all the venting. And if the last few matches were anything to go by, John was pretty right about the way Sherlock was treating him. Ian still remembered how Sherlock laughed in John's face after one comment the doctor had made and the high pitched mocking voice that came just after it. 

But he also remembered the heaving sobs that echoed down the stairs after John had left again. 

Ian had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but the outcome was hopeless unless John tried to understand what was actually happening in the great asshat's brain. 

Rosie traced a scar on his back and he sighed, running his hands through her hair. 

"Sherlock's afraid that John doesn't want him." 

"I know," Rosie said, shifting beneath the covers. 

"So he's pushing him away." 

"I know." Her path continued down his spine. 

He shivered. "Classic approach to that. Seen it about a thousand times." He smiled as he pressed his lips to her forehead. 

"I know," she replied. 

They were silent for a few moments. It was late, very late. They were both tired and agitated at the same time. There had been another blow out screaming fight earlier after John had talked to Rosie for an hour. This one had seemed worse than the others. It was two weeks since he had found Rosie. 

"What are we supposed to do about Moriarty," he asked into the dark. "They've been fighting so much that we haven't even thought of it." 

Rosie sniffed. "Not true. Sherlock and I talked about it a week ago." 

"You mean that time where you seemed to be speaking but there were no actual words coming out?" 

She smiled, but it faded easily. "He said that there isn’t anything to do right now. Jim doesn't have a lot of assets. I don't think he expected me to get to Seb before he had killed John and Sherlock. You were probably supposed to find me dead in that meat locker, suffocated by my own weight." 

"So I'm the only one to suffer left alive," he said. "Typical. He hated me the most." 

She sighed. "You're not wrong." 

They were silent for a long time. 

Rosie slid a hand along his skin. "How did you survive?" she whispered. 

He knew what she meant. How had he survived the captivity. He'd told her what went on while they were separated. All of the things he'd been through she'd seen before or been through far worse. There had been no use in trying to protect her from the horror and the loneliness of it all. 

"Same as you I guess," he said. 

"On adrenaline, fear, and the persistent thought that someone needed me?" 

He pulled her closer. "Yes. You needed me." 

"You love me." 

"Duh." 

"I love you." 

"Duh." 

Suddenly Rosie pushed up to straddle his waist, pressed a hard kiss to his lips then immediately stripped her shirt off. 

"Rosie," he said, holding onto her hips as she leaned forward to press a kiss to his jaw, something she _knew_ drove his crazy. "Sex and I love you are not the same thing." 

"Yes, you told me that about a thousand times," she said into his neck, trailing kisses down at the same time. "I am aware that sex can mean 'I really don't love you' too." 

"And that's why –" 

Rosie sat up straight, then. "I am not going through the rest of my life afraid of them, do you hear me?" He tried to push up, but she shoved him back down, her face hovering just inches from his. "I have you. You keep them away. You kept them away on my worst days and I _know_ that being with you is not the same as what they did to me. I want to be with you, do you understand?" 

He reached up to cup her face, brushing back the tangles of long hair that threatened to cover her bright blue eyes. He could still remember when her eyes were hard, afraid and angry. They weren’t now. 

"I love you," he breathed. 

"We aren't like John and Sherlock," she said. "I trust you. From day one I trusted you." Her fingertip traced over the thin scar that cut across his cheekbone. 

"I'd do anything for you," he said. 

She brought her lips down hard. 

~~~~ 

Ian was really tired of all the shit that happened to him. His life would have been ten thousand times easier if he hadn't met this girl. It probably would have been about half as long, and not nearly as glorious, but it would have been a hell of a lot easier. 

Rosie was asleep. Dead asleep. Like the kind where a fire alarm could be blaring in her ear and she wouldn’t even twitch. Her bare back peeked over the covers as she clutched the pillow beneath her head as he came back from the bathroom. Ian suspected it was the most serene she had been since they were sixteen, possibly even ever. 

He was not calm. Not at all. 

How could he be with that _man_ standing over her with a gun? 

Did you miss me?" Moriarty whispered, a sly grin spreading across his face. 

Ian swallowed, muscles coiled to spring. He was going to kill the man. He was going to kill him in cold blood. Just when things seemed to be getting better. 

He took three hard steps forward. 

"Ah ah ah," Moriarty clucked. His finger caressed the trigger, barrel pointing right in the middle of Rosie's back. "I'd love to leave my little troublemaker dead in her soiled sheets, but I don't need to." 

He swallowed and took two steps back. 

There's a good boy." The finger went away from the trigger again. "You said you would do anything for her, yes?" 

He had to suppress the urge to vomit. He'd been listening. The whole time the bastard had been there and no one had known. How had he gotten in? How had they not noticed anything wrong? 

"I need you to get out a little piece of paper and write exactly what I say. Not a single word out of place, now. No misspellings. Exactly as you normally would or I'll kill her, and she'll never get to read it." 

Ian looked him straight in the eye. "Why?" 

"The boys upstairs seem to be doing quite splendidly destroying themselves on their own. I'll kill them later if they don't get to it themselves. You two on the other hand, well." The grin that split Moriarty's lips was chaotic, dark, pure terror given gleeful form. "I want to see what my little project does when she thinks her light was my puppet all along." 


End file.
